Wolf Cub
by Stratagem
Summary: While searching for the Dynasty's missing Beacon, the Mighty Nein come across a surprisingly young runaway Scourger trainee. [Critical Role, Campaign 2: Mighty Nein]
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own Critical Role.

A/N: I've been playing around with this idea for a few weeks now, and it keeps changing. But I thought I'd go ahead and start writing something, otherwise I never will! I apologize in advance for anything that goes against in-game mechanics or if I forget how often spells can be used or how long they last. I'm sorta going to play a little loose with that sort of thing but overall stay true to CR and look things up! Also, I started this before Episode 78, so they're sort of just focusing on finding the missing Beacon here. :)

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**Wolf Cub**

Chapter 1

"How hard, really, do you think it'd be to kill a werewolf? Just in case."

"Again, I will remind you that is just an old story," Caleb said, shaking his head at Nott, "People tell it to their children to keep them away from the forest."

Nott glanced over at the nearby woods where the trees grew close together on the edge and shadows gathered farther in. Her narrowed eyes flicked to Caleb, and she pulled a crossbow bolt from her pouch to inspect the new dull silver tip. "I know, I know, it's stupid, but still…we've seen crazier things than giant-ass wolf men."

Caleb nodded. "I am not saying they do not exist, but I do not think that they, ah, actually exist here in this particular forest."

Nott frowned and drew her shoulders up. "Oh, that makes me feel _so_ much better."

Caleb made a face, and Frumpkin trotted over to flop down in Nott's lap like a purring security blanket.

The Mighty Nein had pulled off the road so they could camp for the night at the edge of the forest. Halfway between Allfield and Deastok, they were skirting the edge of the Cyrengreen Forest and pushing themselves to travel as quickly as possible. It had been luck that had led them to a freaked out traveler in Trostenwald who talked about weird, unexplainable happenings going on in Deastok, things that sounded similar to occurrences in the Cerberus Assembly researcher's notes from Felderwin.

Without a definite bead on Yasha and a certain need to fulfill their obligations to the Dynasty, they had decided to travel toward Deastok. So far, they hadn't been attacked on the road, but they all knew that it was probably just a matter of time. A couple of shopkeepers in Allfield had told them about the supposed werewolves of the Cyrengreen Forest, hence Nott's newest obsession with making silver-tipped arrows. Every night and stop along the way had involved some kind of experiment with new kinds of arrows.

The day had been almost warm, but the evening was beginning to grow chilly as the sun sunk low in the horizon. It was officially spring in Wildemount, but winter hadn't quite released its hold, especially at night. Dirty snow still clung to the ground in places the sun found it hard to reach, and crusts of ice formed around puddles along the road every morning.

"Hey, do you think I'd be a blue werewolf if I got bit?" Jester said. She was perched beside their small cooking fire, poking at it with half-burnt stick while Caduceus fixed a vegetable stew. The scent of the spices he had brought along from Rosohna swirled around the group, chasing some of the chill away.

"You're always a blue animal when you do the thing, so I think so," Caduceus said.

"Yeah, definitely a blue werewolf," Beau said. She had Fjord had just finished their evening exercise routine, which meant she was relaxing by the fire while Fjord laid on the ground, groaning intermittently.

"You wouldn't blend in very well with the forest if you were blue," Nott said, one hand in Frumpkin's fur, "Though I'm sure you'd be very pretty."

"Thank you, Nott."

Caleb made an unconvinced noise. "At twilight she would blend very well. Good camouflage."

"That's only a little bit of the day, though. Maybe I should try to not be blue if I get bit," Jester said, "Or, ooo, maybe you turn the same color as whatever werewolf bites you! Like, you know, if you get bit by a silvery werewolf, you're silvery, too!"

"Nah, I think your fur would be whatever your hair color is," Beau said.

"Why are we talking about werewolves again…" Fjord mumbled, one arm thrown over his eyes. "We had this same conversation last night. And, oh yes, the night before that."

"You butted into this conversation uninvited, so you can just go back to moaning about your barely-existent muscles, Seaweed Wrap," Nott teased.

Fjord shot a glare at her and rolled over onto his stomach, resting his chin on his folded arms. He was too tired to shoot a true verbal barb back, but he wasn't willing to completely give up. "But they do exist now."

"Yep, sure do." Caduceus reached over and congenially patted Fjord on the back before he went back to stirring the stew.

Jester grinned. "So…Fjord would be a green werewolf, right?"

"No, black and grey," countered Beau, "It's the hair that's important."

The conversation devolved into more discussions about what they would potentially all look like as werewolves until they got hung up on the mystery of Caduceus' actual hair color. Was it pink or white? Did things he ate affect it? But the Firbolg was being elusive, perhaps just for his own amusement.

"But has it always been pink?"

"Pink's a nice color."

"Caduceus!" exclaimed Jester, partially frustrated. "Just tell us your hair secrets already!"

He gave her a slow smile and shrugged. "They're not really secrets."

"Then just—"

"What's that?" Beau said, straightening up and looking toward the north along the treeline. The alertness in her voice caught the attention of the group, reining them in from the frivolous argument.

"Looks like a bunch of horses with riders," Fjord said after sitting up and taking a good look. They were mostly a blur in the distance, but they were rapidly making their way down the treeline. "And…I don't know what the hell that is out in front." Something was racing in front of them, small and impossibly fast for its short humanoid shape, a dash of shadow that was somehow keeping ahead of the horses.

Nott stood, one hand on Caleb's shoulder. Frumpkin jumped away and went over to curl around Caleb's leg. "Should we hide?"

"Would we have enough time?" Caduceus said. "And there's the fire."

"We didn't do anything wrong, no one said we couldn't camp out here," Jester said rapidly.

"They might turn away from us," Caleb said.

"How about we stay here but everyone gets ready in case we have to hit somebody?" Beau suggested, "Sound good?"

In response, Nott dove behind a fallen log at the edge of the forest, positioning a bolt in her crossbow. Caleb followed her into the tree line, sliding partially behind the trunk of a massive yew tree, and a snap of his fingers made Frumpkin disappear. Beau and Fjord got up while Caduceus and Jester stayed where they were by the fire, though they were both watching the horses in the distance.

The short figure that was running out in front of the horses abruptly slowed down and then tumbled to the grass before jumping up again. They were still a way off, but everyone heard a crack of thunder and saw a few of the horses forced backward before the person took off again at a ridiculous speed, still heading south toward their camp. A dip in the countryside put the person out of sight for a moment.

"Isn't that a thing that Shakäste does?" Nott whispered to Caleb. "The thunder thing?"

"Yes, one of many things."

"How are they moving that fast?" Beau said.

"A really cool spell?" Jester suggested, "Or enchanted boots, I heard that there are these boots that can make you go so fast—"

"Oh shit," Fjord broke in, taking a step forward, hand reaching for his sword as the blur leading the pack of horses burst over the hill and hurtled into the middle of their campsite. They curved around Fjord and nearly ran into Beau before they slipped on the dewy grass, their feet sliding out from under them. Their momentum rolled them across the ground until they hit the base of a tree.

For a moment, a small person in dark clothes was fully visible, half-curled against gnarled roots, momentarily dazed. A cloth covered the bottom of their face, and they reached up with a shaking hand to yank a hood over hair that seemed short and maybe black before it disappeared behind cloth.

"Hey there," Caduceus said, giving a friendly wave.

Wild eyes stared around, taking all of them in, before the person looked up at the tree. Hoofbeats grew louder, and the riders were suddenly into their camp, causing the Mighty Neins' own horses to start neighing and stamping their hooves. With a frenzy of movement, the runner flung themselves at the tree and began to climb recklessly, sending twigs and bits of bark falling to the ground after them.

The horses clomped around the camp, and Fjord had to reach down and snatch up Nott and Beau's packs before one of the horses could stomp on them. He tossed them out of the way, closer to Caduceus.

"There it is," a brunette female in deep blue riding gear sneered, pointing toward the tree as she halted her horse. Another one, a man with a handlebar moustache, lifted a crossbow and even as Jester and Fjord shouted at them to stop, they loosed a bolt toward the tree. There was a spark like flint crashing into steel, and the bolt fell to the ground.

"Hey, assholes!" Beau yelled, her staff settled over one shoulder, "What do you think you're doing?"

"Catching a mangy thief," the brunette rider said, lifting her chin and casting a scowl at the tree. "Arthur, do try again."

Three of the riders, one man and two women, were in lavish clothes of thick satin and expensive soft leather, their cloaks thick and expensive, their weapons gilded with gold. The other five riders seemed to be a mix of servants and knights, their clothing simpler and their weapons unadorned.

The man, Arthur, lifted the crossbow and took another shot at the presumed thief. This time there were no sparks, just a high-pitched yelp that was quickly muffled.

"Maybe let's not be so hasty with the crossbows," Caduceus said.

"You've got them treed, so you can stop shooting at them," Beau said, lowering her staff from her shoulders.

"We'll stop shooting when we're satisfied and our property is returned," the brunette woman snarled, "Unless you're part of the Righteous Brand and have any kind of authority here?" The doubtful tone in her voice was thick, and it didn't sound like she would be too keen on stopping even if they were part of the military.

A bright shot of fire flared from the tree and struck the ground in front of the brunette woman's horse. The horse reared, and she would've been unseated if she had been a lesser rider. The male rider and two of the knights with the group both took a few more shots at the tree.

"Well, you definitely hit the tree, good job at aiming," Fjord said, "Now how about you ride out of our camp that you've half destroyed, and we won't retaliate."

"Do you have any idea who I am?" the brunette woman said.

"Nope, but I bet you twenty gold pieces that you're about to tell us," Jester piped in, standing up, her hands on her hips. "Probably in a really snooty way too, huh?"

The woman cut her eyes at Jester. "I will not have a thief attack my hunting party and I without exacting a punishment on said thief."

"See, you just didn't say your name because I made a bet," Jester said, "Doesn't count."

"What'd they steal?" Beau asked, leaning on her staff now, her knuckles tight on the worn wood.

The other woman, this one wearing a massive hat and a maroon riding outfit, sniffed loudly. "My favorite pair of riding gloves."

Beau blinked. "Seriously."

"And some of our food," the mustached man added pointedly. "It was expensive, very fine fresh venison."

"How much was it?" Caduceus said.

"What?" the woman in the hat said.

"How much money were the gloves and the food worth?"

"The gloves were my favorites," the hat woman fussed, "I can't put a price on adoration."

"A couple silver!" Nott called from her hunkered down spot by the log. To the riders, her voice must've seem ragged and disembodied, and by the way they all looked around uneasily, they now thought there were a lot more people with the ragtag group than they first thought.

Caduceus reached into a pouch on his belt and fished out a few coins. "Mmm, I'll give you three gold pieces, and then I think they'll let you leave. All right?"

"We came here for that thief, and we aren't leaving until we have it," the brunette woman snapped, wrapping the reins around her hand once more as her horse tossed its head.

Behind the tree, Caleb pulled out a small piece of string and a wood of wood. After a few whispered words, an invisible pair of feet crushed the soft grass near Beau. Her eyes flicked toward the spot where Schmidt was standing before she looked back toward the riders. While the brunette woman went off on a sanctimonious tirade about the state of the world and the unlawfulness of these troubled times and brutish underbelly of the Empire, Schmidt's footprints crossed over to toward the horses. Caleb eventually had to step out of the tree line to give Schmidt enough of a range, but only a couple of the riders seemed to notice him.

The woman was in the middle of a declaration against crime in general when her horse reared up, its front legs kicking the air. A moment later, another horse started bucking and then a third took off running. Caleb crossed his arms and rubbed at his neck as Schmidt slapped another horse on the rump, causing more pandemonium for the hunting party.

"We'll take care of your thief, no worries!" Fjord called over the din, stepping out of the way as one of the horses cantered away from the others.

If there was any chance of the hunting party rallying and getting their horses under control, it was demolished when Nott dashed out from behind the fallen tree, waving her crossbow in the air.

"Attack, goblin brethren!" she roared, shooting a bolt off toward the hunting party. It went wide, but it certainly caught their attention.

Jester grinned before clapping her hands to her cheeks in exaggerated horror. "Oh, no, goblins!" She cast Thaumaturgy, and the sound of goblin laughter and feet hitting the ground rolled out from the forest.

Caduceus shrugged and used Thaumaturgy as well to shake the ground, adding to the illusion.

Faced with a goblin horde, the hunting party took off, racing back the way the tree line. Nott gave a smug smile and put her crossbow away as Caduceus righted the stew pot that had gotten kicked over in the chaos.

"Dinner's going to be late," he said.

Nearby, Schmidt's invisible form started to straighten up the camp and gather more twigs and sticks for the fire.

"Maybe our glove thief would like to come join us," Fjord said, glancing up at the tree. The small figure was almost impossible to see in the shadows and branches, especially as the sun continued to set, but they were just visible.

"Only if they don't try to steal our shit or do magic," Beau said. She set her staff down and crossed her arms over her chest. "You listening?"

There wasn't any response.

"Do you think they're okay or bleeding or something?" Jester asked, "They did get shot at a lot of times." She waved up at the tree with both hands before cupping them around her mouth. "Hey, did you get hurt really bad? We can heal you!"

"They are probably scared," Caleb said, "And possibly very tired."

"They did do a lot of magic," Nott said, "What kind of speed spell was that? That'd be handy."

"I did not recognize it."

"You guys don't think they died up there, do you?" Jester said, frowning, "That'd be a bad place to die, they'd be stuck up there forever. They'd be a tree skeleton one day and everyone would be like, ooo, look at that weirdo."

"I could check," Caleb said quietly, and Frumpkin reappeared as he snapped his fingers. The fey cat wound through his legs and then darted off toward the tree as Caleb put a hand on Beau's shoulder.

Frumpkin's climb up the tree was overall smooth-going, though Caleb winced when he almost didn't make one of the jumps. Gingerly, Frumpkin settled onto a limb and meowed at the thief.

At first, the thief looked something like a bundle of dark cloth pressed against the tree, but then they pushed against the trunk, turning to look at Frumpkin. The cloth that had been covering their nose and mouth was pulled down, revealing the dirty, tear-streaked, badly scratched face of a young girl, perhaps only eleven or ten years old.

Caleb gripped Beau's shoulder tighter. "_Mädchen_."

"In Common maybe…?" Beau mumbled even though Caleb couldn't hear her.

"I think it means girl," Nott offered, a note of concern in her voice. "But probably not, I mean, he can't be saying that it's a little girl up there. Right?"

Frumpkin meowed again and padded closer along a thick branch, sitting down nearer to the girl. She laid her forehead against the tree and watched Frumpkin. A few greasy locks of short hair that looked faded black and grey poked out of the hood that was sliding back over her head. It seemed to have been cut a few inches above her shoulders.

"Hi," she said softly, her hand reaching toward the cat before she drew it back, "You're very pretty. What...you are with them?" There was a faint accent to her words, one that made Caleb straighten up. The girl shifted her weigh, and one of the branches creaked. She froze then looped one arm around the tree trunk, shuddering as she tried to lift her right arm.

One of the crossbow bolts had hit her on its way past, slashing open one of her sleeves but not burying in. Fresh tears gathered in her eyes as she lowered her right arm and pushed a bit of cloth back from the wound.

The gash was shallow, long and messy, but Caleb's attention was abruptly yanked toward something glinting in her arm, catching the fading sunset light. Thin, delicate green symbols shimmered as she pulled her arm closer to her chest, sniffling. Caleb had Frumpkin step closer, but he couldn't get a better look.

As she curled in on herself, though, he noticed a terribly familiar necklace dangling from her neck.

He felt Beau shaking him, and he let his senses snap back into his own body before she could jostle him harder.

"Hey, you're all sweaty, what's wrong?" Beau demanded.

"Caleb, Caleb are you all right? You look awful!" Nott said frantically.

Caleb shoved his hands through his hair as his mind whirled, thoughts battling each other to get to the forefront. He covered his mouth, feeling sick, and looked up at the tree. "I…we may have a problem."


	2. Chapter 2

"So she's like a little baby Scourger, then?" Jester said uncertainly. She nibbled at her bottom lip and pressed her hands together. "Like a really teeny tiny one?"

"I am not sure," Caleb replied. He had told them everything he had seen through Frumpkin's eyes, and after a few moments of general nonsense whisper-yelling, they had all wound up sitting around the fire, digesting the information. Frumpkin had been left up in the tree if they needed him again. They kept their voices low in case the kid in the tree was listening in on them, which they all thought was probable. The sun had completely disappeared behind the trees, dragging fingers of orange and lavender across the darkening sky. "I very much doubt it."

"She does have magic, though," Fjord said, "And she tried to fight those guys off even when she was wounded, that seems sort of Scourger-esque. I'm just putting that out there."

"Lots of people would fight back if they were getting shot at, I think," Caduceus said, "Maybe she just found the necklace."

"But how would she get it from a Scourger?" Jester said, "It's not like one of them is just going to leave a necklace like that laying around and be like, 'Oh, hi, yes, little thief, please take my super special jewelry, I'm not going to kill you over it.'"

Caduceus shrugged. "But it's not impossible."

"It's extremely unlikely," Caleb mumbled.

"She also got chased up a tree," Beau pointed out, "That doesn't seem like something that would happen to a full-fledge Scourger."

"What about the thin marks on her arm?" Nott said. She was sitting right beside Caleb, her arm brushing against him, her worried eyes trained on his face. "That doesn't…that's not what happened to you, right?"

He shook his head. "No, they looked like tattoos, but they were the same—the same color. Same patterns."

Beau cursed, low and emphatic, before she leaned forward, elbows on her knees. "You think it's a new way to do the crystal thing."

Caleb's fingers twitched toward his own arms before he forced his hands down against his thighs. "Perhaps. It could be." He needed to look at the marks closer before he could be entirely certain, but he knew those symbols all too well.

"So she _is_ a Scourger?" Fjord said, frowning.

"No," Caleb cut in, a sharp, raw edge to his tone, "No, she is too young. But it's likely she is connected to them somehow."

"Maybe they just finish training them younger now," Jester said softly, reluctantly. She flicked her gaze toward Caleb's, judging his reaction, and he curled his shoulders inward and dropped his head into his hands.

The group was quiet for a few moments. In the forest, birds sang out evening songs and the few insects and frogs that had started to emerge for spring began to chirp and call. Their cooking fire popped and crackled, and Caduceus leaned forward to stir the new batch of vegetable stew.

"In any case, what're we supposed to do with her?" Fjord asked, "She's just a kid. It's not right to leave her up in that tree."

"I don't think we can go up there and drag her down," Beau said. "You ever tried to get a pissed off, scared kitten out of a tree? I think it'd be something like that, except instead of claws there're fireballs and shit."

"Maybe she's out of magic," Jester said.

"Not if they're cantrips," Nott said, "And the fire thing was a cantrip." She snuck a look at Caleb, who had that same firebolt spell. He still had his face buried in his hands. Poor boy…he was having a hard time getting away from his past lately. Reaching out, she rested her hand on his shoulder, and she felt him lean into her touch.

"You guys, do you think maybe she's some Scourger's kid?" Jester said, "Not a Scourger herself, really, but if one of them had a kid, they might give her a necklace to keep her safe. Do Scourgers even have babies?"

"They are usually busy with matters that wouldn't leave time for a family." Caleb sighed, lifting his head. He tucked some of his hair back behind his ear.

"What are you thinking?" Beau asked him. "Why do you think she's out here alone?"

Caleb looked up at the tree, unable to see the girl anymore in the darkness. "One of Jester's ideas may be right, in a way. I don't think she is a Vollstrecker, but she could be a trainee. Or have been." He squeezed his right forearm. "They would not give that necklace to a trainee, but she could have taken it somehow."

"But is she running from them or trying to prove something to them?" Fjord said, "Because she could be out here attempting to show them that she's a grown-up Scourger ready for combat."

"Or she could be really scared and trying to get away from them, Fjord," Jester said, shooting him a frown.

Fjord held his hands up. "I know, Jessie, and I would like that option because it would make it easier to help her. But we have to consider all of the angles."

"We could talk to her," Nott said, "Ask her some questions."

"We have to be careful," Caleb said, "I don't want her to run away from us." He looked around at the group, his eyes pleading. "Even if she is with them, she is just a child. There may be hope there, if I can talk to her…"

Caduceus and Jester shared a look, remembering what had happened last time Caleb had spoken to a Scourger. Jester tapped her fingers against her leg anxiously.

"There're basically three possibilities, right?" Nott said. She put up one finger and kept raising fingers as she counted. "One, she's a Scourger trainee who's running away. That's the best option. Two, she's a Scourger trainee who's trying to prove herself. Or three, she's a Scourger's kid who got separated from her parents."

"We won't know anything for sure until we talk to her," Beau said.

"You said she's hurt, Mr. Caleb?" Caduceus asked gently.

"_Ja_," Caleb said, "I don't know how bad, but she did not look well. Her arm is certainly slashed open."

"Then we're going to have to get her out of the tree, somehow," Fjord said, "Preferably without a fight."

"Does someone want use a charm spell on her?" Beau said, making a face. "Not the best option, but it'd get her down."

"I could Command her, but I don't like that idea," Jester said. She picked up a stick and poked at the fire. "She wouldn't like it at all."

"I wonder if she's hungry?" Caduceus said. He was stirring the stew again. "We could maybe coax her down with a bowl of this."

"Did she look hungry, Caleb?" Jester asked, leaning forward. "I have some pastries from Alfield!" She grabbed her haversack and started rummaging through it, her arm in the bag up to her shoulder.

"I couldn't tell," Caleb said, "But it is worth a try."

"Wait, we need a plan for if she comes down," Fjord said. He slid closer to the fire, further tightening their circle. "Or she could eat and then take off with whatever the hell that speed spell was."

"If she can even cast it," Nott said.

"We'll hold off on asking her anything about Scourgers 'til we figure her out some," Beau said, "Then maybe we ask about her necklace if she's not hiding it. Or those marks if she lets you guys heal her."

"Maybe you could let her see your necklace, Caleb, if you're okay with that," Jester said. She pulled a half-squashed box of sweets out of the haversack and set them on the ground. Popping up the lid, she turned toward Caleb. "Like, not stick it in her face or anything, but she'd recognize what the necklace means if she knew Scourgers, wouldn't she? So you could let her see the necklace and then if she like respects you and stuff, then she's probably still all, um, bad. But if she's scared or something, that might mean she's good? But you don't have to if you don't want to."

Caleb was silent, both of his hands on his arms, almost hugging himself, as he sat cross-legged on the ground.

"You don't have to," Jester repeated quickly, "It was just an idea."

He watched the fire for a little longer and then tilted his head toward Jester. "That could work. But what should we do if she reacts badly?"

"Well, we have some spells for that, but they won't make her trust us in the long run or anything," Nott said, "But you, do you have that sleep spell ready?"

Caleb nodded. "Today, yes. I thought it could be useful in the forest."

"Looks like it will be," Beau said, "Or if that doesn't work, I could sit on her."

It would've been funny if she hadn't been completely serious about it.

"We can counter her spells, too, if we need to," Fjord said.

With a plan in mind, Jester and Fjord volunteered to go over and try to get the kid to climb down from the tree. Meanwhile, Caduceus and Nott started getting dinner ready, Nott holding bowls while Caduceus filled them with hot vegetable stew. Caleb put a hand on Beau's shoulder and felt her put her hand over his before he shifted his senses to Frumpkin.

The girl had changed branches, resting with her arms draped over one limb. Her eyes were half-closed, either from pain or exhaustion, but it seemed like she was watching their campsite. She had pulled her hood up all the way again, and she had her chin resting on her uninjured arm. This time he noticed the deerskin gloves on her hands, a couple sizes too big, and a cloth pouch hanging from a wide makeshift braided band that went from her shoulder to her hip. It was hard to make her out as the shadows grew deeper, but he could see her tense as Jester and Fjord approached the tree.

Silently, she drew her feet up onto the branch and froze. Her eyes widened, and she took in a deep breath, one hand closing into a fist.

"Ah, um, far enough, that's far enough for them. Spell. She has one," Caleb said, trusting to Beau to figure out how to get Jester and Fjord to stop.

"Hey, you're good there," Beau yelled.

Fjord and Jester halted thirty feet away from the base of the tree. For a moment, the girl looked over at Frumpkin as if trying to figure something out and then she turned her attention to Jester and Fjord again. She kept her left hand clenched in a fist.

"Hello!" Jester said, smiling upward. She held up one of the stale donuts. "Do you want to come down and have something to eat? We chased off all the bad guys."

There wasn't a response. Nott set down a couple bowls on a medium-sized stone near the fire and snagged another bowl from the haversack. Up in the tree, the girl watched Fjord and Jester, her fist pointed toward them. Caleb had Frumpkin casually move to another branch so he could gauge the girl's expression, but there wasn't a good spot for the cat to perch.

"We have other things to eat besides donuts," Fjord said, "We have stew, if you're really hungry. And if one of those crossbow bolts hit you, we have a couple healers who could help."

"Like me," Jester said, "And the donuts are a little bit old, but they're still really good."

The girl moved this time, incredibly slowly, but she stepped down onto a lower branch. She stood up, balancing on her right foot, and looked out through the leaves, shifting her attention from Jester and Fjord to Caduceus and Nott judging by the way she lifted her head. Her hand, however, stayed trained on Jester and Fjord.

"We would be happy to share," Fjord continued, "We have more than enough."

"Is she even listening?" Beau hissed at Nott.

Nott shrugged. "Maybe Fjord's freaking her out. Could be he's just not as charming as he used to be."

Fjord overheard her and glanced back at Nott in exasperation. She smirked and took another bowl out for Caduceus.

"The stew's going to be hot and really good," Jester said, "Caduceus is a great cook, and sometimes he adds these mushrooms that are super tasty."

"I added them this time," Caduceus put in, lifting the ladle in a lazy salute.

"See!" Jester put her hands on her hips. "You should come down and eat with us! It'll be fun."

There was a long silence as they waited for a reply, and Jester puffed out her cheeks. "Aw, come on, we're really cool people. And there are pastries, you can't say no to pastries."

"And no one will hurt you as long as you don't attack us," Fjord added, and he laid a hand on his chest, "I promise."

A few minutes passed, and Jester and Fjord walked back to the group, defeated.

"I can't believe that didn't work, I offered donuts," Jester complained as she sat down hard, her elbows going to her knees. Caduceus leaned over and gave her a quick hug around the shoulder, rubbing her upper arm.

"You gave it a good try."

"Nice job, silvertongue," Nott teased, giving Fjord a friendly hip-check to the leg before she handed him a bowl of stew and a spoon.

"Your compliments are just so inspiring, Nott," Fjord replied as he sat down, "It really makes me feel good about myself."

"Mmm, I must doing it wrong then."

"Oh, no, you're cutting to the quick very well."

They carried on with their banter as Beau waited for Caleb to come out of his trance. She squeezed his hand to let him know he should let the spell drop, but some time passed before he finally did, looking deflated. She bumped her shoulder against his as she stood up and stretched.

"Give her time. Kids can be weird."

Caleb hung his head. "_Ja_."

The group settled down for dinner, enjoying the stew and the warmth of the fire as the evening grew colder. A chill was settling in and the wind was picking up. They all tried to subtly keep an eye on the tree, but Caduceus was the first to notice the very slow shadow making its way down the trunk. He put a hand on Caleb's shoulder and gently squeezed before pointing out toward the tree.

Caleb nudged Beau harder than necessary, and she glared at him before looking at the tree. She reached out and tapped Jester's hand. Soon the whole group knew, and they all tried to pretend they hadn't seen her, worried that she would spook and take off.

The shadow stumbled when she reached the ground, and an instant later, she disappeared behind the tree. Caleb started to get up, afraid she would dash into the forest. He couldn't stand the idea of her going back to the Vollstreckers or running from them without any help, as alone and frightened as he had been when he had first left the asylum.

Caduceus caught his arm and held him in place. "Wait, I don't think she went anywhere."

Caleb twisted his hand a little in Caduceus' grasp, holding onto his friend's arm as he shifted his focus to Frumpkin's senses again. He had Frumpkin spring down the tree and pad out over a branch on the far side. The girl was crouched down at the base of the tree, and as he watched, she peeked around the tree toward their camp. He asked Frumpkin to climb down the rest of the tree and go to the girl before he broke his trance.

"She is watching us," he whispered, and made a cut-it-out motion at Beau as she craned back to look at the tree. "I think she will come over here if we don't scare her."

"This stew is sooo good, Caduceus!" Jester bubbled, probably louder than she needed to. "What'd you put in it?"

"Mushrooms, spices, potatoes, carrots, onions, greens, salt." Caduceus continued to list a few more ingredients, tapping his spoon on the edge of his bowl before dipping it down into the stew again. "I'm glad you like it, Miss Jester."

They all started complimenting Caduceus' food, creating a rambling conversation and attempting to not make it incredibly obvious how much their attention was focused on the tree. Out of the corner of his eye, Caleb noticed the slip of shadow step out from the treeline, Frumpkin trailing behind with his tail erect like a flagpole. The girl limped as she crossed the open space, her eyes catching a bit of the light above the cloth she had wrapped over the lower part of her face again. She had tied a knot in the rip in her sleeve, hiding the wound on her arm.

She stopped a good twenty feet from their circle, one foot back, one forward, body angled to present a smaller target to most of them. Her left hand was closed again, and in the back of Caleb's mind, he readied a counterspell in case he needed it.

"Is this your cat?" she asked quietly, her voice lower than it had been before. The faint Zemnian accent from earlier was gone as well, replaced with something that sounded like a half-decent attempt at Western Empire accent.

"Oh, hi!" Jester said, "It's Caleb's cat, so yes, it's ours. Are you hungry?"

"I don't have any money," the girl mumbled.

"You don't need any," Jester said hurriedly, "We're happy to share."

The girl pulled back some and then opened her left hand. A handkerchief tumbled down, light and fluttery. It was thin, probably made of silk. "I could trade this."

Jester waved her hand. "You don't have to—"

"Sure," Beau said, "We'll trade."

The girl hesitated and then came forward, Frumpkin keeping up with her. In the firelight, her eyes looked dark and wary, her attention skipping around the group. She stared at Nott and Caduceus and then held the handkerchief out to Caduceus at arm's length.

"Thanks," Caduceus said, "This is real pretty." He took the delicate handkerchief in a hand that probably could have cupped her entire head. She didn't flinch away from him. "Here, hold on." He handed the handkerchief over to Nott and ladled stew into the bowl until it was full. He held it out to the girl. "There ya go."

She took the bowl and retreated back to the very edge of the firelight, not sitting down but keeping her weight off her left foot. Once she was mostly in shadow, she pulled the cloth down to her chin and started devouring the stew. With a nonchalant motion while the girl was distracted, Caleb reached for the chain around his neck and drew the necklace out so that the enchanted pendant rested against his shirt.

"Not so fast, you'll choke," Fjord cautioned the girl.

"There's more where that came from," Caduceus said, gesturing toward the pot.

"Speaking of where things came from, where'd you come from?" Beau asked.

The girl didn't say anything, but when she lowered the bowl, she flicked her eyes toward Beau. "Not far from here."

"Uh-huh," Beau said, "But where? What town?"

There was a second of hesitation then a firm answer. "Deastok."

"Where are your parents?" Nott asked. She was perched on the stone that had held the soup bowls earlier, a few pieces of pocket bacon in her hand. "Did you get separated from them?"

The girl took a few more bites of the stew, stalling. Caleb could almost see her crafting a lie. "I'm going to visit my eldest sister in Alfield," she answered, "She's having a baby, and I'm supposed to go help. It's her first."

"And you're all alone on the road?" Jester asked, "That's not very safe."

"I was with a group of travelers, but I got lost," she said, "But it's fine. I can take care of myself, and it's only a few more days away."

"How old are you?" Fjord asked in a friendly tone.

"Thirteen."

Right, and Jester was bright yellow. Caleb knew the girl couldn't be more than eleven or ten, if not younger. And this story about her sister rang hollow.

"Why were those people chasing you?" Beau asked, "Did you really steal from them?"

The girl shifted farther back into the shadows. "I won't steal from you."

"But you did steal from them, right?" Beau pressed.

She set the mostly-empty bowl down on the ground. "I was hungry."

"What about the gloves? They said you stole some gloves, were they really beautiful or something?" Jester asked.

The girl took another step back. "Thank you for the food."

"Wait," Caleb held up a hand, "You don't need to leave." He got up, still holding his hand out in front of him. He moved toward, breaking the ring of his friends. "You should stay."

Her shoulders snapped back at the sound of his voice, and she stared at him. Reaching up, she yanked the cloth back over her nose and mouth and took a quick few steps back, not taking her eyes off him. Her left ankle couldn't seem to bear her weight, and she went down, her hand going to her leg.

"I will not—I am not going to hurt you, I swear it." Caleb stepped forward to help her, closing the distance so he was only five feet away, and for a split second, her gaze darted to his necklace.

The wary look in her eyes darkened into recognition before it warped into sheer razor-sharp terror. She screamed an arcane word as she threw her hands up to ward him off, and he didn't have time to avoid the ring of transparent blades that sprang out from around her. The ring was made of a dozen swords of varying sizes that suddenly whirled counterclockwise, and it felt like they all sliced into his skin as he was driven backward five feet. The slashing wounds they left behind faded after a few seconds, but a slight ache remained.

Nott sprang off her rock and ran toward him. "Caleb!"

Beau rushed past her, her staff clutched in one hand.

The girl was scrambling backwards, but Caleb snatched a bit of sand from his component bag. Inwardly, he crumpled at the petrified expression on her face. He had expected her to be afraid if she was a runaway from the Vollstreckers but he had misjudged the degree of her fear.

"I'm sorry, I am so sorry, I am not—I will explain soon." He completed the sleep spell with a gesture and an arcane phrase.

She wavered for a moment as she tried to fight the spell, and he was by her side before she went limp. Beau crouched down on her other side while Nott darted up to Caleb.

"Are you okay?" Nott demanded, looking him up and down.

"Is everything all right?" Caduceus said. The rest of their group was approaching, everyone looking shocked.

Caleb's face scrunched up, and his gaze was pained, though both Beau and Nott doubted it was from the earlier attack spell. "I didn't wish to frighten her like that."

"You couldn't know it'd be that bad," Beau said. "That sword spell was insane." She glanced down at the girl. "Is she gonna wake up if we move her?"

Caleb scratched at his arm and shoved the necklace back under his shirt, his guts twisting. He kept seeing her face, seeing the bone-deep fear,_ knowing_ what that felt like, and that he had caused it. It was Nott who answered for him.

"Just don't shake her too much or hurt her, and she should stay asleep."

"Got it." Fjord said. He stepped forward and carefully scooped up the girl while Nott hovered at Caleb's side and Caduceus settled a hand on his shoulder, reminding him he wasn't alone.


	3. Chapter 3

Jester sat down on the ground next to the thin pallet they had made for the girl. "She's so little," she said to Caduceus as he knelt down on the girl's other side.

"Taller than Nott, I think," he said, "But yeah. She's awful young."

The group decided to go ahead and set up the rest of their camp for the evening, partially because it would keep Caleb occupied with the alarm system and casting the hut and partially because they weren't sure if the riders would try to come back. The horses needed to be secured, their fire needed to be doused and scattered, and the cooking pot needed to be cleaned. Fjord and Beau divided those chores while Nott gathered their things and put them in a pile that would be in the hut later on.

That left Caduceus and Jester to stay with the thief and see what kind of healing she actually needed. Overhead, the activated driftglobe helped keep the area lit for Caduceus.

The girl didn't have much gear, just one pouch hanging from a braided shoulder strap. While her inquisitiveness was piqued, Jester decided to not go prying in the bag as she slipped it off the girl's shoulder. She wrapped the strap around the bag and set it to the side.

Jester reached over and carefully pulled off the girl's hood, which happened to be part of a much-too-big cowl. The cloth she had been using to hide her face slid away with the cowl, and they got a better look at her. Beneath the dirt and scratches, she had high cheekbones and delicate features.

Her hair was thick, messy, and short, maybe an inch off her shoulders, and it was multi-colored in shades of black, gray, and dark purple. It didn't look natural. It looked like a bad dye job, as if she had used ink or something to change her hair color. Here and there, Jester saw locks of strawberry blond hiding among the fading dyes. Maybe it was some kind of disguise?

"I think she's a half-elf, see her ears," Jester said. Peeking out of her hair were small pointed ears, not nearly as long as full-blooded elves but definitely more noticeable than a regular human's. "I didn't think charms worked on half-elves."

"Maybe she's not quite half an elf," Caduceus said. He had carefully taken off her left boot, which was too big for her, revealing a swollen sprained ankle. Maybe she had done that when she had taken a tumble earlier; it didn't seem like she would've been able to run the way she had with an ankle that badly twisted.

With a quiet word, he put a hand on her ankle and pink lichen spread over the angry bruise. When it flaked away, her ankle looked a lot better, almost as good as new. It would probably be tender and hurt some to walk on it, but it would fully heal in a couple days.

Jester cast a healing spell on the scratches on the girl's face, closing them up with a warm green light. There was a light touch on her shoulder.

"She's new," the Traveler's voice said, a touch of curiosity there.

Jester smiled over her shoulder, but he was already gone. She pulled a cloth out of a healer's kit and poured water onto it. Gently, she brushed at the girl's face, cleaning off the dried blood and dirt. The kid looked half-starved, her cheekbones pronounced and dark shadows under her eyes. Whenever she woke up, Jester was going to offer her whatever pastries were left in her bag or at least two-thirds of them. No, all. Or maybe just most? Ahhh…she'd figure it out later.

"She was really frightened by Caleb," Jester said quietly, wary of Caleb overhearing. He didn't need to pour any more guilt in on top of what he was already drowning himself in. "She definitely thought he was a Scourger, didn't she?"

"That or he's scary to her in some other way," Caduceus said, "But I doubt that's it. It's probably the idea of him being a Scourger, like you said."

"He's not scary at all," Jester said, frowning. "He's like the opposite of scary."

"No, but he might seem like it, if you're not one of our group."

"I still think she thought that he's a Scourger," Jester said.

Caduceus nodded. "I do, too." He gave a heavy sigh. "People would have to be pretty heartless to hurt a kid enough to make her that afraid."

"I think all Scourgers are really super good at hurting people," said Jester.

Cleaning off the girl's face revealed a smattering of brown freckles across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. There was a small scar under her right eye…or it looked like a scar at first. Reaching out, Jester took her face by the chin and tilted her head so the light caught her skin better. There were faint, nearly-invisible silvery curling lines under and above the girl's right eye. They shimmered in the light of the driftglobe and trailed back toward her ear.

Jester carefully tucked her hair back and saw more lines curving around the back of the girl's ear and down her neck, disappearing beneath the collar of her shirt. Some of the lines on her neck glinted green instead of silvery gray.

"Caduceus, do these look like tattoos to you?"

"Hmm?" Caduceus glanced over and then tilted his head to the side. "Yeah, they sort of do. A bit young to have those, isn't she?"

"I don't think they're like regular tattoos," Jester said, thinking of Caleb's scars. He had mentioned not too long after their trip to Uthodurn that the refined residuum they had bought there looked like the crystals that the Ikithon guy had forced into his arm back when he was a kid.

The green of those crystals was the same green as the girl's tattoos, but there was something familiar to Jester about the silver lines. She couldn't place it, though, and she guessed that maybe she had seen something like them in Nicodranas.

The girl's right sleeve had been awkwardly tied up, and it was easy to undo the knot. The gash in her arm was shallow but long, and it was still sluggishly bleeding. Either the second crossbow bolt had got her or she had been hit before even getting to the camp.

Another healing spell closed up the wound, and Jester wiped away the remaining blood. She jerked her cloth back and then dropped it when something in the girl's arm caught the driftglobe's light and glittered brightly.

"Caduceus," Jester breathed as she gingerly pulled the girl's sleeve back, widening the hole in the cloth. "Is that…?"

"I think so," he said, his eyes dark.

Jester's fingertips brushed over the piece of green crystal in the girl's arm. It was small, diamond-shaped, and strangest of all, flush with her skin. The same thin silver and green tattoos curled around it, making arcane runes around the crystal in a way that that reminded her of the patterns in Caleb's spells.

Carefully, she picked up the girl's arm and pushed her sleeve up past the loose glove and her elbow. There were a few more small crystals embedded in her arms, each one level with her light brown skin as if it was a part of her. It looked like the tattooed runes were anchored around the bits of refined residuum. Jester drew her lips into her mouth and bit down on them for a moment as she hesitantly prodded one of the crystals. It didn't slip or seem like it would be easy to slide out, and she was too freaked out to try it right now.

"This is so cruel," Jester said bluntly, setting the girl's arm down.

"People really can be terrible," Caduceus said. He touched Jester's arm briefly, silently commiserating with her and trying to offer some comfort. There was a certain black seed of darkness in whoever could do this to a child.

"Why…that is just so…Scourgers are shithead bastard people," Jester finally spat out, glaring.

"Yeah, that."

Jester pulled the girl's sleeve back down as she noticed Caleb walking back toward them, Nott at his side. After she had finished gathering up their supplies, Nott had hurried over to him and kept him company while he worked on the alarm spell. Four cheerful globules of light circled around them as they walked over, lighting up the way for Caleb.

"Caleb's going to start building the hut," Nott said, "It shouldn't take him too long, he's gotten very good at it, you know."

"What color are you going to make it tonight, Caleb?" Jester asked, looking up at him.

"I, um, maybe green. Dark green, like leaves." He made a helpless gesture toward the girl. "Is she all right? She was bleeding, it was her arm—"

"We fixed it," Jester said quickly and then glanced at Caduceus for help. Were they supposed to tell Caleb about the crystals right now? He would find out eventually, it wasn't like he hadn't seen the tattoos, maybe he had already seen the crystals, and even if he hadn't, they wouldn't keep it from him forever, of course. Just. Maybe until he felt a little better. Or maybe they should just go ahead and tell him, ugh, she was so torn—

"Do you want to look at her arm?" Caduceus asked Caleb, "She's got a lot of those tattoos you mentioned. And, well, there're crystals, too."

Caleb froze, but he eventually nodded. "I…yes."

Jester reluctantly pulled back the girl's sleeve again as Caleb knelt next to her. She gently bumped against him, reminding him that she was there if he needed her. Nott also hovered close by, sticking next to Caleb. Frumpkin was draped around Caleb's shoulders like a second scarf, one that purred intermittently.

Caleb's eyes went wide. "Oh." It sounded like someone had hauled back and punched him in the gut. His fingers trembled as they hovered over the crystals in the girl's arm, not touching the runes.

"There're more tattoos than big crystals, Caleb," Nott pointed out quickly. "But I guess they're crystal tattoos."

Jester pushed her hair back from her face. "Maybe? They look like the ones like Orly has. They start here," Jester said, pointing toward the little half-elf's right eye. "They go around her ear and down her neck…"

"If the green ones are residuum, what're the silver ones?" Nott said, "I feel like I've seen it before."

"Right?" Jester said, shaking her head. "And it's like sometimes they're there and sometimes they're not. It's weird."

"Did you check her other arm?" Caleb asked, his fingers curling into his palm.

"Not yet," Caduceus said. Gently, he lifted her other arm and slid her sleeve upward. The same patterns and swirls were mirrored on her left arm, drifting down below the deerskin gloves.

"Poor little mite," said Nott.

"This should not have happened," Caleb said, "She isn't even old enough for the Academy, why would they take her?" He squeezed his arms and stood up abruptly, stumbling a little in his haste. "Hut. I need to build our hut, I'll start that."

Nott put her hand on Jester's shoulder and turned toward Caleb as he pulled out his spellbook. "Do you want any help?" she asked, "Not that you need it, but if you wanted it…?"

"Ah, yes, please, Nott. If you could hold the spellbook?"

"Of course, Caleb."

The two of them walked a few feet away, and Caleb began to cast the spell. The dancing lights continued to hover, weaving around each other lazily now that Caleb wasn't focused on them.

Jester used another healing spell on the girl just in case and then leaned back on her hands. "I guess we just let her sleep now?"

"Mhmm, she could probably use it," Caduceus said, "It seems like she's been through a lot. A bit of rest will do her good."

"She's going to freak the hell out when she wakes up," Beau said as she wandered up, done with her part in putting the camp in order. Fjord was right behind her, yawning and rubbing his sore muscles. "We need to figure out what we're going to do about that."

Jester huffed. "It's not complicated, Beau, we'll just tell her, 'Hi little girl, we saved you! No one's going to hurt you anymore, okay, you're like totally safe now.' Something like that."

"Uh, I feel like she's not going to respond well to that, even though it's a nice thought, Jester," Fjord said. "Judging by how she acted, I doubt she's going to be very trusting."

"And she's going to wake up scared," Beau said. She leaned against her staff. "She might try to take off."

"Or use that sword spell again," Fjord said, "I'd like to know how she did that, I haven't seen that one before."

"Let's get her to like us before we ask her to teach us spells," Jester said. She turned around and yanked her haversack over so she could rummage through it.

"Caleb, do you feel okay?" Caduceus called, "We forgot in all the hullabaloo, but you got hit by that sword spell."

"Just a mild ache in my arms," Caleb mumbled, his attention almost fully on the spell he was casting. "I'm fine."

Beau frowned. "Yes, he's just great," she grumbled quietly. "Look," she said, raising her voice again, "When we go to sleep, we'll still need to keep watch, and I think we should tie her to someone."

"She's not our captive, Beauregard," Caleb said firmly. His bright blue eyes darted up from the spell for a moment and she glowered at him.

"Just focus on your damn hut spell. I know she's not a captive," Beau replied. "But if we're going to get even a chance to talk to her, we're going to have to do something to keep her from running off. And eventually we're going to have to talk about what to do with her long-term."

"Let's cross that bridge when we get there," Fjord said, "If we tie her to someone maybe it should be Jester?"

"Because I'm the strongest," Jester said.

"Well, that, and you're very nice," Fjord said. "It'll only be temporary, just until we can properly explain that there was a misunderstanding and no one meant to scare the shit out of her earlier."

"And we can make sure she knows that Caleb's not evil," Jester said quietly.

Fjord pointed at her. "Yes. That _is_ very important."

Jester pulled a blanket out of the haversack and tossed it over the girl. It was a soft, squishy blanket, one she had thrown in there while they were temporarily in Nicodranas. She had wanted something to remind her of home, and the blanket had come from her old bedroom. It still smelled faintly of rose blossoms and the sea.

"She'll like us, once she gets to know us."

Caduceus smiled. "I like us. Some other people like us. We have a fifty-fifty track record of people liking us."

Beau gritted her teeth. "Ehhh, that's…ehh…Maybe thirty percent like us."

"Except for Fjord!" Jester exclaimed. "Eighty percent of people like Fjord."

The hut popped into existence, bubbling around all of them before it became transparent. If you unfocused your eyes, you could see a bit of shimmer in the air that let you know the spell was in fact working.

"Can you make it so she can't get out?" Beau asked Caleb. "Like she'd just bounce off the wall and stay inside?"

"It does not work that way," Caleb said. He scratched at his left arm and took the spell book from Nott so he could put it away. "I believe it will be all right if she's tied to Jester. Jester will not attempt to crush her with a stick."

Beau made an exasperated sound. "That was once! One time!"

"Jester is better with children, they like her."

"I'm not _that_ bad with kids!"

"I'll do it, I don't mind, it's fine," Jester said, attempting to keep them from arguing. "I think I have a really pretty silk sash we could use to tie her ankle to mine, and I'll know if she tries to get up and run."

"That's a swell idea, Miss Jester," Caduceus said, "I'll stay up and keep an eye on her for a while. I want to talk some with the Wildmother, too, see if she can tell us anything about our little friend."

"Do you want help?" Fjord asked.

"Yeah, that'd be nice."

"Everyone else should get some sleep," Nott said, and then looked straight at Caleb, her gaze stern. "Everyone."

Caleb ducked his head. "_Ja_…"


	4. Chapter 4

Dawn rolled over the hills, ending Jester and Beau's watch. Deciding that it was better to be safe than sorry, the whole had all wound up taking a watch round just in case the girl woke up and tried to attack them. It seemed that she had slept through the night, though, which was better than Caleb. He had tossed and turned, restless, nightmares creeping in every time he closed his eyes. A few times he had called out into the darkness, waking himself as well as the lighter sleepers in their group.

As the hut reached the end of its time limit and dissolved around them, Caleb sat up and rubbed at his face, feeling sore and uneasy. The girl was curled up into a tiny ball, the spare blanket covering most of her except for her poorly dyed hair.

"Good morning, Caleb," Jester said with a yawn. She had fished her sketchbook out of her haversack and started drawing in it, the book propped up on her knees. There was a stretch of dark green silk tied around her ankle that looped over and disappeared underneath the girl's blanket.

"Good morning, Jester," he replied. Her yawn was catching, and he hid his own in the crook of his elbow as he forced himself to his feet.

Beau flopped backward onto the grass beyond what had been the hut's boundaries and then rolled onto her stomach, pushing up into a plank position. "Ugh, it's dewy."

"No one said you had to exercise this early in the morning," Nott grumbled, not even bothering to open her eyes. She just instinctively knew that Beau had already started her morning routine. Rolling over, Nott shivered and dragged her blanket over her head. Caleb grabbed his own blanket and tossed it over her.

Fjord stirred, propped himself up on an elbow, and groaned as he saw Beau. "Right. Exercising."

"Every morning," Beau said, grinning.

"I think my muscles are going to rebel and fall apart one of these days. Probably a sooner day rather than a later one."

Beau started doing push-ups. "That's how you know it's working, when you feel like you're dying."

Caduceus sat up, half of his hair stuck to his face. "Mornin'," he rumbled, "Why are we feeling like we're dying?"

"Not everybody, just Fjord and Beau," Jester said, "Mostly Fjord."

"Fair enough," Fjord said as he got to his feet. "Can't we feed the horses first then exercise?"

Beau paused. "Are you always going to whine like this?"

"I think it's a fair question," Fjord said.

"I guess we're going to need breakfast," Caduceus said. He dragged a hand through his hair. His long fingers got caught in a tangle, and he started to work it out.

"Caduceus? Did you, uh, did you talk to the Wildmother last night?" Caleb asked. He had intended to stay up and listen to the questions, but he had drifted off before Caduceus had even started. He guessed that if Caduceus had tried to commune with the Wildmother, it had been during one of his brief stints of sleeping.

"Oh, yeah," Caduceus said absently. He finished getting the tangle out of his hair and began to braid a few locks of pink and white together.

Caleb threaded his fingers together and took a deep breath. "Do you mind if I ask you what she said? What you asked?"

"Not at all," Caduceus said, "I asked if our new friend was running away from the Scourgers because she didn't want to be one, and the Wildmother said yes."

Jester peeked up from her sketchbook. "We sort of already knew that, didn't we?"

"In a way," Caduceus said, "We knew she was scared, but now we know she probably won't try to kill us or something. Maybe."

Caleb nodded, looking over at the curled up lump under the blanket. She was different than the Vollstrecker in Xhorhas, and not just because she was a child. That woman had relished being a Vollstrecker, a weapon in Trent Ikithon's hand.

"What was your second question?" Nott asked. She had sat up and pulled Caleb's blanket over her head, one ear popping out from under the edge of it before she readjusted the blanket.

Caduceus sighed. "If Mr. Caleb would know the people who are looking for her, assuming that Scourgers want to find her."

Caleb's fingernails bit into his palms as he stared wide-eyed at Caduceus. "Would I?"

"The answer was uncertain but leaning more toward probably yes," Caduceus said gently.

"But maybe no," Fjord put in quickly. "It really wasn't entirely clear."

"But I probably do," Caleb said, his voice barely above a whisper. His thoughts hurtled into the past, to horrible unquestioning loyalty, to familiar faces lit by flickering flame, eyes holding a certainty that what they were doing was right and necessary. Brown eyes glinting in amusement, an encouraging hand on his shoulder, comforting words after a long day of spellwork. A deep laugh, a piece of bread shoved his way across a smooth wood table, a teasing shove.

Astrid or Eodwulf or both of them might be tracking this girl. If they weren't, Ikithon himself could be trying to find her. The residuum in her skin meant that she was probably considered a valuable experiment, and he felt like he should know more about those faint silver lines, like he had seen them somewhere before.

Claws brushed the back of his hand and then Nott's fingers slipped into his, drawing him back to the present. Caleb squeezed her hand. When had she gotten out of her bedroll?

"You back?" Beau asked, her gaze steady as she met his.

"_Ja_, I…_ja_."

"How about that third question, Caduceus?" Nott said.

"I asked her if she had family who were alive, people that she was running to, and…" Caduceus shook his head. Caleb couldn't think on that right now, afraid of where his mind would go, the conjectures he would make if he gave himself permission.

"So what're we going to do with her?" Beau asked. She had stopped her work-out before Fjord could join in, so he was sitting cross-legged in the grass beside her. "No one's really brought that up yet."

"We could just ask her what she was planning," Caduceus said, and then addressed the blanket bundle. "Did you have a plan when you ran away, or are you just running? Or did you have a plan and then not have one, because we do that a lot, too, it's completely natural."

"Um, Caduceus, you might want to wake her up first," Fjord said.

"She's awake," Caduceus said, looking confused, "She's been awake since I got up. Didn't you all know?"

There was a pause and then a collective, "What?"

Jester shut her sketchbook with a thump and set it down on her bedroll. "She's been faking it? How long? Beau, did you know she was faking it?"

"I mean, no, but…well, she's really good at it," Beau said defensively. She picked up her staff and stretched it out toward the bundle. "You can drop the act, kid."

"Beauregard, don't," Caleb said, though he wasn't sure if it was on behalf of the girl or Beau. It wouldn't be fun to be jabbed at by Beau, however carefully, but he also didn't want the girl to suddenly spring up and toss spells at Beau. Neither situation was beneficial to any of them.

"Skewering her with your staff isn't going to be the fastest way to make her like us," Nott said, tossing a frown at Beau. "Just saying."

"I was just making sure she was awake," Beau replied.

"I still have pastries, if you want some," Jester offered as she tilted toward the bundle, and Caleb tensed, ready with a counterspell in mind. "Do you want one? Or a couple. And oh yeah, please don't try to run or anything, you're sort of tied to me right now, but we'll untie you soon, promise." Jester's fingers flitted through the air as she talked, and she leaned closer to the bundle. "Also, Caleb isn't evil, and we're not super scary, and you're pretty safe right now, okay?"

The blanket bundle moved, and the kid edged out from under it, away from Jester. She pushed her hair back from her face and looked around rapidly, probably figuring out where each person in the group currently was. When she spotted Caleb, she stared, focusing on his hands and then his face and back again as if preparing for a spell about to be cast. Caleb forced his hands to stay still and he kept his arms down by his sides. Her eyes were wide and fearful, and in the dim morning light, he could make out that they were dark green, maybe hazel.

"That's Caleb," Jester said, "And he's not a bad guy, and he didn't mean to scare you yesterday. Well, we were trying to see if you'd be scared or not, but he didn't mean for you to totally freak out so much."

"I'm sorry," Caleb said softly. When she didn't respond, he sat down on the ground, worried that by standing he seemed threatening.

The girl was silent as she shifted so that she had both hands pressed against the ground, looking like she was going to take off the moment she got a chance. However, when she tried to slowly move backward, testing her limits, the sash that kept her tied to Jester went taut. The girl froze.

"Oh, yep, still tied together," Jester said, "Just for now."

"How about we simply talk for a while?" Fjord said, "We've got a few questions, if you're willing to answer them, and like Jester said, we've got some food."

Beau pulled her staff back. "Yeah, kid, you look like you could eat."

There was certainly a half-starved look to her. Her high cheek bones made her appear extra thin, and her baggy clothes hung off her.

"Here, hold on, I've got—" Jester snatched up her haversack and started digging through it in search of pastries. "Give me a second."

"She should eat more than pastries," Nott said. She held up her hands at Jester's scandalized look. "Not that pastries are bad, she should just eat something more nutritious, too. And she needs water." She looked around and snagged one of the water flasks that was laying around. Holding it in both hands, she crossed over and set it down within reach of the girl, who momentarily turned her attention from Caleb to Nott. There was a flicker of curiosity in her eyes, but she didn't reach for the flask even when Nott retreated to stand beside Caleb again.

The girl's fingers flickered toward the knot around her ankle, her eyes still on Caleb. He took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders under her scrutiny and fear. He would be the same way if he thought he had been captured by Vollstreckers.

"Nope, don't do that," Beau said to the girl, "Leave it."

The girl closed her hand into a fist, and Caleb wondered if she was about to throw a spell at them. After sleeping all night, she certainly had some at the ready. But she put her hand back flat on the ground and leaned back.

"Donuts!" Jester pulled the partially crumpled box out of her bag and flipped open the light brown lid. She snagged a chocolate-dipped donut out of the box and held it out to the girl between her forefinger and thumb. "It's just a little stale but still so good." The girl didn't move, so Jester took a big bite out of the donut. "And see, it's not poisonous!" Again, she held it out to the girl, who immediately leaned away, though her eyes darted to the pastry for a second.

More silence.

"Okay, we know you can talk," Beau said, her patience wearing thin, "You talked last night."

"Give her some time," Fjord said, "We did knock her unconscious and tie her to one of us."

"You got a good night's sleep and healing, too," Jester said to the girl, "Caduceus and me healed you." She grinned. "You're welcome."

"Do you have a name you'd like us to call you?" Caduceus asked, smiling down at her, "I'm Caduceus Clay, by the way."

The girl glanced at Caduceus, then the water flask, before she looked back at Caleb. He didn't know what to say to her, but he truly wanted her to know he wasn't…

"_Although he would have it otherwise, I am not one of Trent Ikithon's pet assassins,_" Caleb said, switching to Zemnian, catching the attention of his makeshift family. He stood up and pulled off his coat with slow, measured movements, and laid it on the ground. "_Just as you are not one, correct?_"

She narrowed her eyes at him and her shoulders shifted backwards uncertainly. To her, it might have seemed like a trap.

Caleb began to roll up the sleeve on his right arm. "_Have you heard of Bren Aldric Ermendrud?_"

"_It's just a story that's told in the dark, at night._" Her voice was so quiet he almost didn't understand what she said. "_The older students tell…told it to scare us_."

"_What is this ghost story you have heard?"_

"_It's just about a boy who wasn't worthy and he went insane because he disappointed Archmage Ikithon." _

Caleb pushed his left sleeve up as well and took a knee in front of her, putting himself in range of the spell she had used the night before. "_Is that what they tell you now_."

_"Why do you care?_"

"Caleb…" Nott cautioned.

"It's all right," he said, not breaking eye contact with the girl. He held up his arms, showing her the patterns of scars, crude and rough versions of the intricate designs on her own arms. "_Because it is my story, although I tell it differently. It's the story of an arrogant boy warped by the pressure of a thousand lies but who finally broke under the truth." _He turned his arms, baring the scars._ "Did you break as well, little one?_"

She winced and pulled inward, wrapping her arms around herself. One hand went to her head, pressing against her temple for a moment as if holding back a headache. Caleb's chest clenched, his heart hurting for her. "_I'm not…I… He's not real." _Her fingers pressed into her arms._ "My teacher says he isn't real, it's a story."_

"_I am terribly real_," Caleb said gently, "_And I am not one of them, I swear it to you. I left a long time ago, and I have been running ever since._"

She peeked up at him from behind her dirty hair. "_How do I know you're not lying?_"

"_I can't force you to believe me, but I hope you'll give me the chance to prove that I am not._"

Something gray and nearly invisible puffed into the air by her right eye. The tattoo around that eye seemed brighter, the silvery twists glowing faintly. Caleb's mouth dropped open. The gray wisp disappeared an instant later, and the girl nodded, relaxing a tiny bit.

Caleb caught Beau's eyes beyond the girl's shoulder. She had seen the fragment of possibility pop into existence and fade back out as well.

With Ikithon's predisposition toward experimentation and knowing that some of his students had shown skill in dunamancy, Caleb supposed that dunamis tattoos weren't so much as a stretch of the imagination as the inevitable next step in Ikithon's attempts to harness more arcane power.


	5. Chapter 5

While breakfast was made, bedrolls were packed, and camp was broken down, Jester sat with the girl, their ankles still tied together. It seemed like whatever Caleb had said to her had made her less likely to lash out at them, but that didn't mean she was happy about her situation. She definitely wasn't at ease yet, and if Jester didn't keep an eye on her, her fingers found their way to the knot at her ankle. So far, she hadn't been able to work at it long enough to get it loose.

Hoping to win her over, Jester had offered her donuts and cinnamon rolls and half of a bear claw that had been stuffed deep into the bottom of the haversack, but the girl had refused all of them. Maybe she just didn't have a sweet tooth.

"Do you have a name?" Jester asked since the girl hadn't offered one when Caduceus had asked earlier.

The girl glanced at her and then settled her chin on her knee again.

"We have to call you something," Jester said, "Little thief girl isn't going to work forever. Here, let me tell all our names, then maybe you can tell me yours?" She went through all them, pointing at each of her friends in turn. When she got to Caleb, who was rapidly studying his spellbook, she hesitated. "Well, I think he told you his other name, but he goes by Caleb Widogast now. So you don't have to keep your other name either, you can pick a new one if you want."

Jester had lost the girl's attention. She was now giving Caleb's spellbook a covetous look, like she would love to jump up and snatch it for herself. Wizards must've all had serious book-hoarding problems.

"Do you have a spellbook like that?" Jester asked, "Is that what's in your bag?"

The girl wrapped her arms tighter around her knee, which pressed her bag tighter to her chest. She had grabbed it up after Caleb and Beau had walked away to whisper at each other earlier.

"I'm not going to take it," Jester said with a sigh. She was getting nowhere fast with the girl, and she was starting to feel really bad about it. At least Kiri had been friendly…

Picking up her sketchbook, she started to draw again, continuing her piece from earlier. It was of the girl up in the tree like she had been the night before, one eye visible through the thick leaves. She wanted to show the Traveler how the girl looked scared but like she would also tear someone apart if they got too close.

When she peeked over to make sure the girl wasn't trying to untie the rope again, she saw that the kid had opened her own bag and had a set of papers in her lap. There were only a handful of them, and they were all different sizes, some of them only half a sheet. They had been stitched together with a piece of twine in order to turn them into a kind of rough book. Each one that Jester could see had arcane symbols on them, written with a swirling flourish.

Surprisingly, there were little doodles at the edges of the top paper, tiny hearts and stars and bits of curlicues. While the girl seemed standoffish and mature, those drawings reminded Jester that she really was just a child.

The girl caught her looking and her cheeks turned red beneath her smattering of freckles, her fingers carefully curling over edge of the papers. "I won't use them on you, I'm just—I need to look at them."

Her voice sounded different than yesterday, higher and touched with the same Zemnian accent that Caleb had. Perhaps her accent was lighter, less pronounced than his, but it still had that familiar touch of Zemnian.

"So you did have your spellbook in there," Jester said with a smug grin.

The girl bit her lip, the red in her cheeks darkening. "This one's only temporary."

"You have pretty handwriting," Jester said. She guessed that the girl had left her real spellbook wherever she had run away from and this was a makeshift one. Jester didn't want her to be so embarrassed by it.

"Thank you," the girl mumbled.

"So what all spells do you know? Do you know lots? What was the knife spell?"

The girl hunched over the papers. "They're swords," she said quietly, a petulant note to her tone.

"Oh, but they looked like knives," Jester said, "Maybe it's because you're so little, you can only make teeny swords."

With a huff, the girl flipped the page. "When are you going to let me go?"

Jester blinked. "You're not our prisoner."

The girl gave Jester a long steady look and then very intentionally looked down at the sash tied around her ankle.

It was Jester's turn to huff. "Well, that's for your own good right now. We don't want you to run away, it's not safe on your own. You're just a kid."

"No, I'm not. And it's not safe if I stay with you, either. Not for me, not for you," the girl said, lifting her chin. She carefully closed up her spellpages and tucked them back into her worn side pouch. "People are looking for me."

"Scourgers, right?" Jester asked. She could feel the moment when Caleb's gaze shifted from his book to the pair of them.

The girl nodded. "They're not…they aren't going to be forgiving if you help me. If you like being alive, you'll let me go."

Well that wasn't unsettling at all. "We're really good at fighting, we'll be fine," Jester said with a heap of confidence that she didn't entirely feel. She tilted her head. "And we wouldn't give you to them. We would never do that."

The girl looked down at the knot, her fingers twitching toward it. "You have to let me go. I mean it."

"And you think you'll be all right if you go it alone?" Caleb interjected. He slid the book into its holster and looked at the girl with narrowed eyes. "You think they won't catch up to you?"

"If what you said was true, they haven't caught _you_. And I can be fast by myself," she said, getting to her feet. She jiggled the ankle that was attached to Jester's. "You saw yesterday."

"Where would you go?" Caleb asked. He stood up and walked over to them, reaching out to Jester in case she wanted to get up as well even though he knew very well she didn't need his help. She took his hand and jumped to her feet anyway.

The girl frowned up at them. She was only about a foot taller than Nott, if Jester had to guess. "I'll go that way, and you can forget you ever saw me." She waved one gloved hand toward the forest.

Jester and Caleb looked at each other, neither of them in any way swayed by the girl's request.

"You'll get eaten by werewolves," Jester said, leaning into the old story. "The wood's full of them, you'll get eaten right up of you go in there."

"It is not," the girl said. Her eyes flicked toward the woods and she shook her head.

"How about we have breakfast, then we can all decide what we're doing?" Caduceus spoke up. He wasn't far away, over near the remnants of their campfire. "You'll think better if you're full."

"Are you going to run if we untie you?" Jester asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

"If you run, I'll catch you!" Beau called from over near the horses.

"And she'll catch you before you can do your speed spell thing. She'll straight up tackle you," Nott said as she approached. She had been looking around the edges of the forest, keeping an eye out for anything that might be stalking them from the darkness or any Scourgers that might've caught up to the girl. "Come on, stay for breakfast."

"Why does it even matter if I stay?"

"It matters to me," Caleb said earnestly, "It matters a great deal." He knelt again so that he was eye level with her, and she met his gaze with a certain inner steel. "We come from the same place, you and I, and I want to make sure that the people who are chasing you never find you."

The girl looked down at her feet. "I don't want your help."

"You seem very brave, but you are also very young," Caleb said, "Maybe you need help, even if you don't want it."

"You could all get hurt. Really bad. In a dead way."

"Let us worry about that."

"You could get me caught."

"I wouldn't let you be caught."

Her gaze slowly raised and met his again. Fear, suspicion, and uncertainty burned in her eyes, but there was a spark of hope dancing there, almost hidden. "I don't have anything to trade for breakfast."

Caleb almost laughed, but instead he simply gave a surprised smile. "How about you give us a name, and we'll give you a donut?"

She made a face. "I don't have one yet."

"Then you could answer a few other questions," Caleb said.

"Maybe…"

"All right. I am going to do this with the understanding that you won't run." Caleb reached out and undid the knot around the girl's ankle.

She stepped back and rolled her foot around on her freed ankle. For a moment, Jester worried that she was going to take off for the woods, but she simply stayed right outside of arm's reach.

The group circled up around the campfire to drink tea and eat breakfast. Donuts and pocket bacon were passed around along with the oatmeal Caduceus had fixed. He pressed a bowl into the girl's hands.

Automatically she tried to give it back to him, but he had already picked up his cup of tea. He took a sip and gave her a warm smile. "You can eat it. I don't need anything from you for it. Consider it a gift."

"I can't," she said, shifting uncomfortably. She set the bowl on her knees.

"You could help feed the horses before we leave," Fjord said, "Is that enough? You can work for your food."

In response, the girl picked up the bowl and began to eat, closing her eyes for a second to savor the warm meal.

"Where'd you come from?" Beau asked nonchalantly, leaning back against a rock as she bit off a chunk of pocket bacon. "Like what town."

The girl eyed Beau. "I'm not from a town."

"I meant where are you running from," Beau amended. "Was it Rexxentrum? Or Deastok?" She noticed the slightest pause in the girl's movements, a twitch in her cheek that wasn't from eating.

Earlier, when Beau and Caleb had briefly discussed the fragment of possibility that the girl had used, they had decided she had probably come from Deastok. That was the most likely place for the Beacon to be, judging on the rumors of weird shit going on there, and the city was in the general direction she had been running from. The silvery half-invisible tattoos probably came from dunamis that had been extracted in Deastok.

The girl took a few more bites of oatmeal before tightening her grip on the spoon. "It's better if you don't know."

"Right," Beau said, "I'm betting you came from Deastok and that you know what's going on in that town."

"Was the Cerberus Academy doing experiments there?" Fjord asked, "We know that they've done them before in another town. Similar things seem to have been happening in Deastok." Beau had told him, Nott, and Caduceus about the possible dunamis tattoos as well, but there hadn't been an opportunity to tell Jester.

Now realization spread across Jester's face and she stared at Beau wide-eyed.

"Is that where the Beacon is?!" Jester asked eagerly, whipping toward the girl, "Have you seen it, we're looking for it! That would be so great if you know where it is for certain!"

"You could just say yes or no," Nott said, "Yes, it's there, or no, it's not."

The girl stared at them wide-eyed.

"You can keep eating," Caduceus said, "They're just excited."

Caleb held up a hand as the girl continued to gape. "We are trying to end the war, and we believe that the Beacon could be a part of the key to, ah, that mission."

The girl tightened her grip on her spoon. "It was there."

"Was?" Beau said, frowning at her. She tried to get a gauge on whether the girl was lying or not, and she had a feeling that she was probably telling the truth. Maybe it was the haunted look in her eyes.

"I don't think it is anymore," she said, setting the empty bowl to the side. Caduceus reached over to pick it up, and she flinched away from him, one hand raising. He moved slowly as he drew the bowl away and filled it up again.

"You can help me clean up from breakfast, too, if you have to. I just want you to eat something."

"How do you know it's not there?" Caleb asked.

The girl shifted and took the bowl from Caduceus. "Thank you…I'll help you." She looked down at the herbs sprinkled on top of the oatmeal. "I just know. I can feel it."

"Like a gut feeling?" Jester asked, "I get those sometimes, too."

"No," the girl said, fingers pressing into the bowl. "I can feel it."

"You mean that you know where the Beacon is because you can sense it?" Caleb said carefully, unsure if that's what she really meant or what the implications were if that was true.

He took her agitated silence as a 'yes.'


	6. Chapter 6

"Hold up," Beau said, "Are you like some kind of Beacon compass? Which direction is it in?"

"Can you point to it?" Nott asked, leaning forward. "Is it that way? What about that way?" She used her piece of stiff pocket bacon as a pointer, jabbing it towards to north and then the east.

"How would that even be possible?" Fjord asked, frowning. "I think you're misinterpreting this, or someone isn't being entirely honest."

"Don't just call the little someone a liar, Fjord," Jester scolded. She perked up and turned toward the girl. "Ooo, are you consecrated to the Beacon?"

"Consecuted," Beau said, "Oh man, maybe that's it, if it's real. But nobody in the Empire would know how to do that, would they?"

Fjord gave her a steady look. "There are quite a lot of hands from more than one country currently in this situation."

"But if she was conse-whatever, other people who are consecu-yeah would be able to find it," Nott said, "They wouldn't need us."

"I, ah, I don't think that's it, in any case," Caleb interjected, worriedly looking over at the girl. She looked like she would love to disappear where she was, perhaps melt into the stone she was sitting in or simply go invisible. Yet again, he wondered how about the speed spell she had used yesterday. Did it require components? Or was it just verbal or somatic or both? All three? There was no way to be prepared for it, and if she used it, she could potentially disappear in an instant, for all their claims that Beau could catch her. "Maybe it's the tattoos."

"Can you really feel where the Beacon is?" Jester asked their little thief, "Because that'd be really cool if you're not lying, you know."

The girl's fingers twitched against the bowl, a movement that only Caduceus noticed. He cleared his throat and waved a hand at the suddenly over-energetic group.

"Let's let her eat," he said firmly, "We can figure out the Beacon after everyone's actually finished their meal."

"It's sort of important, Cad," Beau said, but she took an aggressive bite of her pocket bacon and went quiet.

The group discussion devolved temporarily into talking about the upcoming day of travel, though now they weren't entirely sure where they were supposed to go. If the girl was telling the truth, then Deastok probably wouldn't be the best place to go and they no longer had a destination. If she was lying for some reason, then they should still be going toward Deastok.

Eventually the girl stood up and walked around the edge of the re-stoked campfire to give her bowl back to Caduceus. He smiled. "Thanks…" He narrowed his eyes at her thoughtfully. "We gotta call you something."

"That's right, you have to pick a name!" Jester said, "I have a list if you can't think of one. I've always liked the name Harlequin, it's very pretty. Or Crystal or Diamond or Amethyst. Amethyst is so beautiful, I love rings that have amethyst in them, like this one." She held up her left hand, showing off a delicate ring with a glinting purple gem in the center.

"I'm not planning to stay," the kid said stubbornly. "You don't have to call me anything."

"Everyone needs a name," Caduceus said, "Even if it's only for a little while."

Fjord ran a hand through his messy hair and tilted his head to the side, considering the ragamuffin. "I knew a girl named Laelia once," he said, "That's a nice temporary name."

"Would Sofie be acceptable, possibly?" Caleb offered.

With a certain air of long-suffering, the girl sighed and sat down cross-legged on the ground near Caduceus' feet. Caleb noticed that she was actually within Caduceus' arm reach, and he wondered if she didn't see the firbolg as a threat or if she trusted him more than the others. Or perhaps it was simply a mistake and she didn't realize how long Caduceus' arms really were.

"What if, maybe, you can call me…" She looked at them all before she put an elbow on her knee and put her chin into her palm in an almost scripted posture of childish annoyance. "Nothing."

"Don't be a brat, we're helping you," Beau said. She braced her arms against the ground and leaned back. "But she's got a point. If we name her, Jester and Nott are going to get attached." She glanced at Caleb, and he knew she wasn't lumping him in with the other two because he was already attached. He had been the moment he saw her necklace and the markings on her arms and realized she was a child of the Assembly.

"She's not a dog or a weasel or anything," Nott said, rolling her eyes at Beau.

"What are some more Zemnian names, Caleb?" Jester asked, "Maybe she'd like one of those."

"Let's go with Jo," Beau said, pointing at the girl, "Short, quick, no fuss."

"And it rhymes with Beau," Nott said, "Easy to remember."

"I feel like that would get very confusing, very fast," Fjord said.

"If I agree to a name, can I leave after I clean up from breakfast and help with the horses?" the girl asked, looking at Caleb.

And they were back to this again. Apparently the discussion that she and Caleb had had earlier didn't have the exact effect that Caleb had wanted. He rubbed at his left arm, thinking of what might happen to her if she was off all alone again in the wilderness. Who would swiftly catch up to her, regardless of her spells. "Ah…"

"She said I wasn't a prisoner," the girl said, gesturing toward Jester. "Which means I should be able to leave whenever I want. Right?"

"Well, it is complicated," Caleb said carefully.

The girl popped to her feet. "You can't—"

"Brier," Caduceus said before she could launch into a proper indignant argument. "Brier could be a good name."

"Why?" Nott asked, "Because she's all prickly and defensive?"

The girl made a face but didn't argue.

"Maybe," Caduceus said with a smile, "Briars have a purpose, they're protective. Roses and blackberries have briars. They're useful. And yeah, pretty prickly."

"I can see it," Jester said, "I like it, it's got a lot of different meanings. Do you like it?"

The girl shrugged. "I don't hate it."

"Then that will be your name," Caleb said, nodding at her, "Brier."

"For now," the girl said quickly, lifting her up, her expression defiant.

"That only took forever," Beau said. She clambered to her feet and stretched her arms over her head. "Fjord!"

"Yes?"

"Work-out time, Captain," she said, her grin borderline maniacal.

Fjord groaned and got up as well, looking like he couldn't decide whether to be enthusiastic or grumble for the next thirty minutes. After a long moment of watching Beau stretch, he nodded once. "I suppose I embrace my fate."

Beau pointed at Brier. "You. Don't run off yet."

Brier ignored her as she walked around the campfire, her oversized boots landing against the edge of where the scorched earth met the grass, one foot in front of the other. The campfire was low, barely burning, and she wasn't in any danger of getting burned. She seemed somewhat bored and antsy, like she needed to move.

Beau and Fjord wandered off toward the woods, where Beau said they could use the lower tree branches as pull-up bars. The morning air was cool and crisp, but the sun had already melted the blanket of frost that had covered the ground. Dewdrops caught the sunlight and sparkled while birds called in the forest, loud and obnoxious against the overall quiet of the morning.

"Let's put the fire out and clean out these cups," Caduceus said, standing to his feet.

Brier craned her head back to look up at him as he passed by her as she made another round at the fire's side. "You're a firbolg, right?"

"Mhmm," Caduceus said, "And you're a half-elf?"

Her nose scrunched almost imperceptibly at that, but she didn't say anything to correct him. "I've only seen a couple other firbolgs before. You're very tall…seven feet?"

"Huh. I'd say I'm a little shorter than Nott standing on Jester's shoulders." He grabbed a stick and began to put out the fire, stirring it around. Caleb began to raise his hand to extinguish the flames completely, but Brier paused in her pattern.

"I can do that," she said, "For part of my breakfast." She spoke an arcane word and made a couple movements with her fingers, fast and well-practiced. The campfire popped and immediately went out, leaving only a few wisps of smoke.

"That's handy," Caduceus said.

"Are you really good with fire, too?" Jester asked, "Caleb's like really, really good with fire spells."

"He's better than really, really good, he's excellent," Nott bragged, a proud smile on her face.

The toothy grin from the goblin made Brier's eyes widen, but to her credit, she didn't step back. "I'm all right with fire," she said, glancing at Caleb, "But that was just a trick."

"A nice one," Nott said, "What else can you do?"

Brier ran the toe of her foot across the ground and began to walk around the edge of where the campfire had been again. "Some other stuff." She seemed rather set on avoiding and dodging any of their questions about her spellcasting abilities.

"Here, do you want to clean these?" Caduceus said, offering a pair of teacups to her. "There's water in some of the flasks."

Brier held the cups, her eyes on Caduceus, hesitant and torn. Her gaze slid to Nott for a moment, like this was some kind of trap.

"You can use the spell," Caleb encouraged. He already recognized the spell she was using. It was the simple prestidigitation skill that most wizards and magic-users played with when they were younger. Many of the students at the Soltryce Academy had been adept at its use. "You have already shown that hand, I'm afraid."

She tossed a frown at him. Bending down, she set the two teacups on a rock, said another arcane word, and waved a hand over the delicate porcelain. Stray bits of tea leaves flew out of them and drifted to the ground, and the paint job glinted in the sunshine. Nott shared a look with Caleb, letting him know she now recognized the spell as well. It was the same one that Pumat Sol had used to clean up Caleb a long time ago, back in Zadash.

"Very nice," Caduceus said, taking them as she handed them to him. "Thank you."

"I've read some stuff about firbolgs," she said, and she sat down beside the dead campfire, her hand trailing idly through the lukewarm ashes at the edges. "Is it true you can live hundreds of years?"

Ah, so she was curious. Caleb recognized that spark of inquisitiveness, that need to know that drove her to be more talkative.

"I think so," Caduceus said, "I guess we'll have to check in a few centuries."

He was about to say something else when Beau and Fjord began shouting from the treeline.

"Riders! Someone's coming!"

Beau swung down from the tree, and it seemed like she was instantly by the fire, she moved so quickly. "It's the bastards from yesterday, 'cept now they have a whole damn army."

"Guess we shouldn't have camped here," Nott said, "Do we stay or run?"

"We're way outnumbered," Beau said, "I think running is our best bet."

Caleb spotted a wild-eyed Brier jam her hand into the fire's ashes, drag out a handful, and clap her hands together. Arcane energy, silver with a hint of green, wrapped around her fingers, rushed up her arms and down to her feet, setting them aglow with bright silver light. She started to say something, probably to complete the spell, which he guessed was the uncannily speedy one. Caleb scrambled forward, reached out, and caught her arm, his grasp firm but not too tight. Ungraceful and hurried, he nearly tripped into the ashes and embers but he caught his balance.

"Whoa, man," Beau said, grabbing his shoulder to steady him.

"_Wait, wait_," he said to Brier, "_Please, wait._ _You are safer with us than on your own, you must realize that. They would have captured you or worse yesterday if we hadn't been here._"

"_Let go_," she demanded, trying to pull out of his grasp. But if he was weak and squishy, than she was infinitely moreso, and she couldn't pry his hand off.

"Are we going or are we fighting?" Jester said, going high-pitched as she began to speak faster. She, Fjord, and Beau were grabbing all of their bedrolls while Caduceus picked up the breakfast gear. "Because if we're going, we better go now, they're going to catch up with us, their horses are really fast, you guys!"

"_At least let me give you armor before they reach us_," Caleb said, wild-eyed with desperation.

"_I don't—_"

"_I understand your lack of trust in us, I truly do, but you are being incredibly obstinate. We do not have time for this_," he interrupted, "_Let me help you, little one, before you're hurt. Then you can travel with us for a day, on horseback, and decide where you're going after the danger is past. Agreed?_"

Nott tugged on his coat pocket. "Caleb, Caleb, we have to go if we're going!"

"If we're taking her, grab her and go," Fjord said, "We're losing our lead."

Brier looked past him at the horseback riders, and he could practically see her thinking, weighing her options and the likelihood of being able to get away using her spell.

"_All right_," she said, "_Just today_."

Caleb nodded and rapidly cast Mage Armor on her, causing her to glow for a moment. Even as the glow faded to invisibility, he set off toward the horses with the rest of the group, still holding onto Brier. He considered who she should ride with, who she would be more likely to listen to, and he quickly settled on Caduceus. Even if the firbolg questions had been a distraction so she could get at the ashes of the fire, it seemed like she at least didn't dislike the tallest member of the party. Besides, Caduceus' horse was a massive drafthorse and could easily carry both of them.

"Here, Caduceus, can she ride with you?" he asked.

"Of course," Caduceus said. He hooked his shield onto the saddle before he climbed up, and Fjord rushed over, grabbed Brier, and set her up behind Caduceus.

"Stay with Mr. Clay," Caleb told her as she grabbed the back of the firbolg's coat.

"Not sure where she'd go," Caduceus said.

"Where are we going?" Fjord asked as he mounted up, "North, south? West?"

"Into the woods?" Caleb suggested.

"I guess that's an option," Beau said, "It'd be harder for them to follow us with that huge group of theirs."

"Hell no, no way, there're werewolves in there," Nott shrieked from her perch behind Jester, "You can forget it. We aren't, in any way—"

She was still yelling protests as the group surged into the treeline, disappearing into the dark shadows of the forest.


	7. Chapter 7

While riding into the forest had originally seemed like a fantastic idea, they had all rather forgotten that a least a few of their pursuers might be familiar with the woods. As the Mighty Nein raced deeper into the trees, Beau looked back to see seven riders immediately break off from the hunting party's small army to chase after them.

"Go faster!" she shouted before tacking on a series of colorful curses. "Faster!"

At the front, Fjord was having a difficult time picking where to go. Horseback riding in the middle of a massive ancient forest wasn't exactly his forte, and it was hard for him to figure out what direction was best for the group. "Everything looks the same," he said, mostly to himself.

Up ahead, it looked like there was a somewhat open path, and he urged his horse that way, praying quickly to the Wildmother that he wasn't leading everyone to disaster. The rest of the group followed him, Caduceus with Brier then Caleb before Beau and Jester with Nott brought up the rear. The thunder of hoofbeats was muffled by the thick blanket of dead leaves on the forest floor.

Nott took a swig of her flask. "I'll pick 'em off," she said, standing up on the horse's rump, one hand on Jester's shoulder as she aimed her crossbow with the other. Somehow she managed to balance.

"Nott, what are you doing?!" Jester demanded. She reached back with one hand to steady the goblin.

"Saving our asses!" She took a shot at one of the riders, but it went wide, soaring over the person's shoulder and embedding in a tree. Growling, she sat back down to reload her crossbow.

The path widened ahead, and it seemed clear enough for a straight run. Fjord dug his heels into his horse's side, and the enormous black gelding broke into a gallop. He glanced back and considered throwing an eldritch blast in the direction of the enemy riders, but there was too much of a chance that he would hit someone else in his own group while moving at high speed.

The other horses took after Fjord's, but the wide path meant that the other group's horses had more room as well. A crossbow bolt whistled over Caleb's head, and another buried itself in one of Beau's saddle bags. Fire arced through the air as a series of scorching rays burned past, barely missing Caduceus and Brier, and three long, slender arrows sunk into the ground or tore through the leaves as they missed their targets.

"They can't aim worth shit," Nott declared, extremely pleased.

"Not enough cover!" Beau shouted, "The path's bad!"

"We could get stuck in the trees!" Fjord yelled back, but he pulled his horse's reins and it raced off to the left, deeper into the forest.

As the group's horses headed back into the trees, Caleb peeled off and brought his mare to a hasty stop. Shoving one hand into his component pouch, he dropped the reins and hoped he didn't get bucked off in the next few seconds. With reckless abandon, he spoke the right arcane phrase, shoved his hand across his palm, and lit the forest on fire.

Flames sprung up across the ground one hundred feet back toward the riders, racing away to the right and left, curving out toward the edges. Fire stretched toward the tops of some of the shorter trees, and the drier underbrush caught with embers and began to spark and burn. In the shadows of the flames, he could see horses rearing back and someone was unseated. No one actually caught on fire that he could see…at the moment…

"Es geht," he mumbled before gathering the reins of his mare again. She pranced backwards from the fire, tossing her head, but he got her under control and they took off again.

"Did you have to set the whole forest on fire?" Beau demanded. She had held back as well once she had realized Caleb had stopped.

"The wood's green, it will not catch," Caleb said, "And they're stalled so let's go."

"Show-off."

With a little more time on their side, the Mighty Nein took advantage of their lead. Most of the trees were dark wood, and the thick canopy cast the forest into dappled shadow. Hanging moss dribbled down from low branches, and deep blue and green lichens grew up the trunks of the ancient hardwoods. As they traveled farther into the woods, the roots of the trees became thicker and more pronounced until some of them would be big enough to walk the horses across like bridges if someone wanted to try it. Mist seeped around the floor of the forest, curling up and away as it was disturbed by their rapid passage.

Forced to go more slowly and carefully, Fjord led them deeper into the woods as fast as they could manage to go, trying to avoid anywhere that looked like the trees and roots were growing too close together. There were some places where a few of the horses would make it, but the bigger ones, his and Caduceus', would have a harder time fitting. Some of the root systems made arches, and Fjord hesitantly had his horse go under one of them.

"Can we go any faster?" Caleb called from near the back of their group.

"Not unless you want the horses to get tripped up in these roots," Fjord said, raising his voice.

"They're tracking us, right? I bet they're tracking us," Nott said to Jester, clutching her crossbow. "Should we set a trap?"

"A trap would be good, but maybe they won't come after us," Jester said, "And we'd have to stop and set it, and we don't really have the time, they would catch up. Anyways, maybe they don't feel like chasing us after that giant fire wall Caleb made."

A crossbow bolt whistled past them, nearly giving Nott's ear a new piercing. It did clip the very edge of her ear, and she shrieked.

"Or they could be right behind us," she screeched. Turning as much as she could, she aimed her own crossbow and sent a couple bolts back at the riders. There were five of them now, and she could only really get a good shot at two of them. Both of her bolts hit, and she cheered even as she panicked. "Go faster, Jester!"

"Everyone keeps saying that, but we can't go fast, we're in the woods," she said, "We'll hit a tree or something. Do you want to hit a tree, Nott?!"

The riders were swiftly catching up to the group, their familiarity with the forest giving them an edge. They were closing the gap much quicker than anyone had expected.

Caduceus sent his horse around a few trees, trying to keep up with Fjord. With Brier riding behind him, Caduceus couldn't afford to take big risks, but he had an idea for slowing down the folks who seemed keen on chasing them.

"Hold on," he said over his shoulder, and Brier's arms tightened around his waist. He stopped his horse and turned it back toward the riders, putting himself between the girl and any potentials arrows, crossbow bolts, or spells. He raised one hand as Jester and Nott hurried by, Beau and Caleb not far behind. Hopefully this worked…

"Caduceus, keep going!" Beau ordered, pulling up beside him. Her horse tossed his head and stepped to the side, eager to move on.

"I'll just be a moment," he said.

Instead of moving past them, Caleb slowed his own horse as well, looking confused. "What are we doing, are we fighting them?"

Beau seemed to consider it. "There're less of them, we could take them now."

"If everyone will stay calm…" Focusing on the horses instead of their riders as they appeared between the trees, Caduceus released a spell.

"Buck," Caduceus said firmly, his tone calm and steady, his hand only shaking a little bit. Two of the horses in the lead began to kick up their hooves and twist around, doing their best to unseat their riders. One rider, the one Nott had hit with a couple arrows, tumbled over the shoulder of his horse, winding up in a heap on the ground.

"Nice," Beau said, grinning with approval.

Caduceus didn't stick around to see if the other one managed to keep their seat or not. A gentle pull of the reins had his own horse wheeling around, and Brier's forehead bumped against his back.

Before Caduceus' horse could really get moving, he noticed something flicker through the forest to their left, lower to the ground than the horses, its movements smoother, almost sinuous. "Do you see that?" he asked Brier.

"What?" she asked back, "What am I looking for?"

"What is it?" Caleb asked, overhearing their conversation, his horse next to theirs.

"I don't know, it's something in the trees…"

Behind Caduceus as he nudged their horse forward, Brier twisted backward and Caduceus heard her take a shaky breath. She mumbled something, her gloved hands tracing a symbol in the air. Three dark purple-blue darts of energy crackled into existence, the magic shifting around them shimmering silver and light green. With a flick of her fingers, the darts zoomed toward three of the riders, impacting in showers of multi-colored sparks. Quickly, she put her arms back around Caduceus, and he could feel her trembling.

"Are you okay?" he asked, concerned.

"I'm fine," she said. Maybe she didn't like horseback riding, though she hadn't shied away from them earlier. Or she could've been scared by being chased through the trees. He had to admit, it was nerve-wracking.

Up ahead, Fjord, Jester, and Nott had halted their horses, waiting for the others, and Fjord took advantage of the moment. Two streaks of eldritch blast boomed through the trees, one of the exploding into a tree trunk and showering one rider with strips of bark. The other caught a rider in the chest and sent her flying off her horse backwards, leaving two riders still actively chasing them.

An arrow whizzed toward them, and Beau snatched it out of the air before it could hit her. "Should we just finish them off?"

At about the time she said that, Caduceus noticed a dark shape dash out of the darkness and up one enormous root. It was a massive cat with huge fangs hanging out of its upper jaw, its deep green fur matted with leaves and detritus from the forest. Vines and leaves wove together through its fur and seemed to disappear into its muscular legs as it leapt from one root to another and then pounced down onto one of the riders. The other remaining rider saw the cat and turned around, taking off in the opposite direction, leaving the felled rider to a rather gruesome end.

Caduceus and Caleb's horses let out a panicked squeals and reared back, attempting to unseat their riders. Both Caduceus and Brier managed to lean forward and stay on the horse, Caduceus' hands burying into the horse's mane while Brier clung to Caduceus. Caleb slid off his horse but landed on his feet, his hands still holding the reins. He tried to quiet her down but she tossed her head and tried to pull the reins free.

"What the hell is that?" Beau snapped, her own horse calmer in the face of potential death.

"Not a Frumpkin kind of cat," Caleb said, his eyes huge even as he tried to calm his mare.

"Don't you even think about taming it or something," Beau said, tossing a glare at him.

He rolled his eyes. "You're the one who bought an owl on the whim."

A deep growl from above that sounded eerily like it had an undertone of rustling leaves was the only warning Beau had before another huge cat dropped down through the branches, landing on top of her.

"Scheiß!" Caleb scrambled backward even as he raised his hands, his mind spinning as he tried to pick the perfect spell. A moment later, reddish-brown giant ape fists beat the ground as he cast Polymorph on himself.

Beau slammed her staff into the cat's jaws, forcing it back and keeping it from literally biting her head off. It bit down on her staff, almost cracking the wood. Beau grimaced. "I swear, if you break my staff—"

Tendrils of vines snaked off its neck and began to wrap around Beau's wrists, and deep green liquid seeped off on the fat but tiny six-pointed leaves. It tingled but didn't do anything worse to her. Yeah, that had to be poison. While it wouldn't work on her anymore, the rest of her group didn't need that kind of hell.

As Beau wrestled with the cat above her, in giant ape form, Caleb grabbed the cat and hurled it as far as he could into the forest. "Wait!" Beau shouted, but it was too late.

Caleb grunted and looked down at the rough pads of his hands. They hurt. Angry red welts were bubbling up from where he had touched the plants on the cats. He huffed and put his hands back on the ground, moving to stand closer to Beau because part of him knew that he would scare the horses the way he was at the moment.

"I think we should get down, the horses aren't going to like this," Caduceus said, "But don't go far."

Brier hopped down from the horse with practiced ease and climbed up onto a lower root, watching the plant-cat thing warily. Caduceus dismounted and grabbed his shield from the side of his saddle, sliding it onto his arm as he backed toward Brier.

Beau got to her feet and looked up as two more cats slunk onto the branches and roots above Fjord, Jester, and Nott. One looked like the first two while the fourth had a massive mane of vines that whipped around its face. The one who had finished off one of the riders began to pad toward Caduceus, blood staining its ridiculously long fangs. The last one shook itself off and gave Caleb a baleful eye.

"Bad kitty! Shoo!" Nott said, standing up on the back of Jester's horse's saddle, "Scat!"

"I could be wrong, but somehow I don't think that's going to work," Fjord said. He jumped down from his horse and summoned Star Razor as the cats began to slink toward their group.


	8. Chapter 8

"Whose idea was it to run into the forest again?" Fjord asked as he fell back into a defensive stance, Star Razor lifted in both hands.

"You were leading the way," Nott said. She jumped down from her and Jester's horse and aimed her crossbow at the maned forest cat. "Safe to say it's all your fault."

"I think it was Caleb's idea," Jester said, dismounting as well. "But it was either this or the army, but that army might have been easier."

"Hey, don't touch them. The cats," Beau called out, "They're poisonous, or at least the ones without manes are."

"That's mostly a 'you' problem, isn't it?" Caduceus said, sounding worried. "With the punching and everything?"

"Eh, poison doesn't bother me anymore. But, yeah, don't let them touch you."

Nott fired her crossbow at the maned forest cat, catching it in the shoulder as it began to jump down from its perch in the tree. It roared in pain but landed on its massive paws, gnarled claws streaked with purple popping out and burying into the soft rich earth.

Without riders and with vicious cats dropping out of trees around them, the horses took off into the woods in multiple directions, though no one was paying their mass expeditious retreat any mind at the moment.

The cat that seemed focused on Caduceus picked up its pace, and the firbolg suddenly went invisible. Behind him, up on the root, Brier's eyes went huge now that she could more easily see the monstrous cat. She immediately began to climb higher, scurrying up the roots as fast she could manage with her sore ankle.

Jester's lollipop, the edges sharp, the colors bright and cheerful in the dim sea of green, shimmered into existence and walloped the cat that was still up in the tree. It yowled and fell from the branch, twisting in midair to land next to the maned cat.

Caleb, still in the giant ape form, lumbered toward the cat he had thrown, intent on flinging it even farther into the forest if he could pick it up again. He swiped at it, but it leapt away and then pounced on his left arm, landing on his bicep.

It clawed at his shoulder, dragging its claws through the muscle before it tried to bite at his neck. Caleb managed to grab it and toss it one-handed, but it landed a few feet away and started to circle him. Caleb huffed, trying to ignore the burning sensation that was now shooting through his left arm.

The battle became chaotic as Beau launched herself toward two of the cats, Nott shot off a few more crossbow bolts, and Fjord jumped into the fray with Star Razor, the runes on the long blade blazing. Jester's lollipop whizzed through the air, swinging at the same cat she had smacked earlier.

At almost the same time, another version of Jester appeared and dashed off at an angle, catching the attention of the maned cat, which now was beginning to look like a pin cushion for Nott's crossbow bolts.

Fjord cut one line down the cat that Jester was harassing with her lollipop, opening up a wound, but it evaded the sword's second swing. However, it couldn't quite get out of the way as Beau tackled it, pounding at its face with her fist.

"Stupid cat!"

"Wouldn't it be nice if they would all just take a long cat nap?" Nott said as she loaded her crossbow with another bolt.

"Caleb, use—aw, right, he's still Cape-leb," Jester said, looking over to where Caleb was trying to throw the forest cat again. He seemed half-hearted about it, which she guessed was because even as a giant ape who was getting ferociously attacked, he still had that bone-deep love of cats. Including blood-thirsty plant-based ones, apparently.

As one cat crept closer to where Caduceus had been, the firbolg popped back into sight on the root Brier had originally been standing on. Green-tinged white flames leapt from his hand and burst against the cat as he started to climb up, easily making it to where Brier was.

"Good to go?" he asked, standing up, his hand on the bark of the tree. She was crouching farther out on the root, holding onto another root above her.

She nodded and closed her eyes for a moment as if gathering her courage. Looking at the cat, she spat into her right hand and made a fist. As she rolled her wrist widdershins, frost crept around her glove, trailing out from between her fingers as a shard of ice extended on either side of her fist.

Brier let out the breath she had been holding and hurled the shard at the cat, who danced back out of the way. As the shard hit the ground, it exploded, throwing pieces of ice into the cat, cutting through some of its vines.

The cat screeched and bounced back, scrubbing at its stinging face with one of its paws. It growled deep in its throat and crouched down at the bottom of the tree, watching them with emerald green eyes shot through with purple.

Caduceus gave Brier a warm smile, almost absently putting a hand on her shoulder before remembering she probably wouldn't like that. It was hard to not touch people when you showed how much you cared through touch. "Nice job."

Down on the ground, Beau kicked away from the cat and activated her gloves, letting lightning crackle around her fingers. "Hey, so along with the poison thing, they're weak against fire, but they like water! No water!"

"Did you hear Beau, Fjord?" Nott demanded.

"No, I'm sorry, what did she say again?" Fjord said in a monotone voice even as he raised his hand. A pair of eldritch blasts burned through the forest, but both of them missed the maned cat as it jumped back and forth out of their range.

"Caleb!" Jester yelled, waving her hands at their resident fire wizard, trying to get his attention. He was far too focused on the cat who was now gnawing at his ankle.

"Thief kid, do you have fire spells? You have those, right?" Beau yelled back toward Brier and Caduceus.

"Her name is Brier, Beau, we gave her a name," Jester insisted. She watched as the maned cat roared and leapt at her duplicate, its jaw so wide open they looked unhinged. It snapped into thin air and landed awkwardly before whirling around quickly to find another target.

Caduceus gave Brier an encouraging smile. "What about that one from yesterday?"

Brier chewed her bottom lip. "Is that okay? If it's just the small one?"

"Do you have a bigger one?"

She must have been distracted because she actually nodded, holding her left wrist with her right hand. "Is the small one all right?"

"Uh, sure, if you'd rather do that. Might be better for the trees, actually."

Brier held up a hand, made a symbol in the air, and fire shot from her hand at the cat on the ground. It hissed and rolled out of the way, avoiding the spell nimbly. After a few seconds, Brier sent another firebolt and then, as quickly as she could, a third. One scorched the cat's shoulder as it surged forward, but it ducked under the third and began to climb the tree.

They were out of roots to climb, but the branches of the tree were now within reach. "Okay, let's go," Caduceus said, cupping his hands, "Up with you, little miss."

She hesitated but eventually stepped into his hands, letting out a surprised squeak as he hefted her up onto the highest branch she could reach. She wrapped her arms around it then hooked her arms around it, hanging like a sloth, before she scrambled up onto the branch.

Caduceus climbed up after her as the cat melded its paws into the tree and began to shift up toward them, half of its body sunk into the bark. Caduceus turned and shot off a guiding bolt at the creature, knocking it out of the tree trunk and onto a root on the other side.

"Oh, maybe the tree wasn't a good idea. But we should probably go higher," Caduceus said, and Brier rapidly nodded. Both of them continued to climb, Caduceus helping Brier whenever she had trouble reaching branches.

"Jester, wave your lollipop in front of it and try to get its attention!" Nott said, watching the cat gather itself and start after Caduceus and Brier again.

"What, like a cat toy?" Beau said.

"It's better than nothing!"

With both hands, Beau swung her lightning-encased fists at the cat closest to her, once, twice. Scorched by an earlier eldritch blast and pounded by the lollipop, the beating it took from Beau was enough to drop it to the ground, its green tongue lolling out between sharp teeth.

Fjord squared off against one of the three remaining cats, Star Razor slashing into its mane as it tried to rush right past him to get to Jester. Yowling, it turned toward him and bit at his side, sinking its teeth into him before he could raise Star Razor to fend it off. With a shout, Fjord held up a hand and tore into it with an eldritch blast, forcing it backward. It looked bad off, green sappy blood seeping from multiple wounds, but it was still standing and glaring at Fjord.

Farther away, Caleb's reddish-brown giant ape form was worse for wear, but the forest cat wasn't having a good time of it, either. It was squirming in his grasp, and Caleb flung it once more. This time, instead of landing on its feet, it laid still on the forest floor, one paw twitching.

Looking around, he spotted the cat moving up the tree, chasing after Caduceus and Brier. Bellowing, he rushed at the tree, surging up the root system and into the branches. Nott and Jester raced toward the tree as well, Jester's lollipop bobbling above her head, ready for more action. A guiding bolt from her hand burst on the trunk, catching the cat's paw, making it pause for a moment. Caduceus and Brier were able to gain a few more feet as it hissed.

On the forest floor, Beau and Fjord teamed up on the cat closest to them, landing blows with staff and sword. It took a swipe at Beau, raking its claws across her thigh. While it was distracted, Fjord slashed at it with Star Razor and Beau slammed her foot into its side. The combined attack dropped it, lifeless, to the ground.

The remaining cat was still making its way up the tree, outpacing Caleb, catching up swiftly to Caduceus and Brier. Nott shot off two crossbow bolts, one after the other, and one hit it in the haunch. It wavered for a moment before continuing onward, its teeth bared.

Caleb dropped Polymorph and was immediately bombarded with yells from Jester and Nott about how the cats were weak against fire. With an arcane word even as they continued to shout at him, he shot off a few scorching rays at the creature as Jester took a swing at it with her lollipop. It shifted deeper into the tree as one of the scorching rays hit, but the lollipop was too far out of range. When the cat emerged, it roared in pain and kept climbing, getting closer by the second.

Up in the tree, only a few feet away from the cat, Brier stopped climbing and lifted her hands, fear in her hazel eyes. She touched her thumbs together, her fingers spread like the wings of a shadow puppet, and flames shot from each of her fingertips, swirling into a cone of fire. For a moment, it looked like it was going to engulf Caleb as well since he had swung higher after the cat, but the flames curled around him as Brier twitched her fingers, sparing him from the flames. They also seemed to arch away from the tree in places to keep it from catching fire, the flames curving in unnatural ways, bound and shaped by arcane energy.

The cat burrowed down into the tree, but the flames licked against its back and it was moving slowly and whining when it reappeared from the bark. It peeled away and stepped onto a branch, moving away from Brier, Caleb, and Caduceus, but another one of Nott's bolts soon buried into its side. It stumbled and fell from the tree, landing on a few of the roots before its body rested limply across a large root a few feet down.

"Does anyone need healing?" Caduceus called down.

"Ah, I believe I might be poisoned…" Caleb said. "Is Brier all right?"

"Just fine," Caduceus said, glancing down at his small but capable little companion.

"Yeah, I'm rather certain I'm poisoned as well," Fjord said.

"Not poisoned, but sort of bit up, scratched some," Beau added.

"I'll be down in a moment." Caduceus let out a shaky sigh and sat down heavily on the wide branch he had been standing on as he prepared to start climbing down, closing his eyes for a second in relief that no one had been hurt worse than what they were. He felt a gentle touch on his arm, a small, unexpected hand.

"Are you all right?" Brier asked.

"Yeah," Caduceus said, opening his eyes to find Brier sitting next to him. She pulled her hand away. "That was a little close, wasn't it?"

There was a spark of amusement about her even though she didn't smile. "Just a little."


End file.
